To Go Boldly
by 2Distracted
Summary: Enterprise heads back to Earth to offload noncombatants and children.  The war is escalating, and soon they’ll be called into active combat as the flagship of the fleet.  Can they make themselves ready for war in the short weeks they have left?
1. Chapter 1a

**Virtual Season Six**

**Episode Nine, Virtual Series Finale**

**To Go Boldly- Part One**

By Distracted

Rating: PG-13

Genre: Romance/Action adventure

Disclaimer: It's been fun, but none of this is mine and I never made a cent.

Summary: _Enterprise_ heads back to Earth to offload non-combatants and children. The war is escalating, and soon they'll be called into active combat as the flagship of the fleet. Can they make themselves ready for war in the short weeks they have left?

A/N: It's still not done. The Hoshi/Malcolm storyline's taken on a life of its own. I made up Joey and Paula, but Tex Wormald is quite real. He even speaks Xhosa...and he's still single last I heard. ; )

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The old man's breathing was heavier than it had been. The dimmed lights and stone colored curtains gave his bedchamber a cave-like atmosphere which stifled T'Len. The room lacked ventilation, and smelled as sickrooms always smelled when a patient was too ill for anything but sponge baths. The young physician hung the second bag of emerald green cupricytes, inspected his patient's infusion site, no doubt to assure himself that it was still flowing well, and then stepped away from Minister Kuvak's bedside. He then turned and beckoned to her. She rose from her customary chair and followed him out of the room, carrying her sewing draped over one arm.

In the hallway, the doctor handed her a data padd.

"When the second bag is completed, you'll need to assess him for fluid overload and administer a diuretic if he shows signs of pulmonary edema," advised the doctor. T'Len nodded, saying nothing. She knew the old man's prognosis. The transfusion was intended only to buy him time. The youthful physician paused as if searching for an appropriate way to phrase his next statement.

"You have been his nurse for over a year now. He trusts you. Is there no way to talk him out of this ill-advised plan?" he asked tentatively. T'Len eyed him sympathetically. Even at nearly 100 years his senior, she could understand the young man's dilemma. Minister Kuvak was an infinitely stubborn individual. He'd chosen this young doctor precisely because he was the only physician the minister could find who would let him have his way. The young man was concerned for his patient, but also very concerned for his career. One word of disapproval from the minister could end it almost before it began. Still, he objected—carefully.

"He is quite determined to see his son before sickness takes him, and equally determined not to inconvenience the boy by forcing him to leave his place of employment for the months that a trip to Vulcan and back will require. He is resolved to die on Earth, and seems convinced that the reduced gravity and increased ambient oxygen concentration will lengthen his life," she replied coolly, disliking the implication that this boy knew what was best for "her" patient. She was merely a nurse, that was true, but she'd been one for nearly twice as long as this child had been alive and had cared for helpless charges at every stage of life. In this instance, however, the boy might be right. There was no guarantee that the minister would even live to see his son again. Whether he waited here on Vulcan and sent for Kov or boarded a vessel to Earth to visit as he planned, the chances of him surviving another month were less than fifty percent.

The doctor raised a brow, considering her statement in evident surprise. "I hadn't thought of that. You said that the transport vessel maintains Earth standard atmosphere and point eight standard Earth gravity?" T'Len nodded once in confirmation. The young physician regarded her thoughtfully. "That could make a difference..." he mused to himself as he turned to leave. He stopped and added, almost as an afterthought, "I will be available for consultation until your departure. The padd contains information for the medical officer aboard the Earth vessel. When Minister Kuvak wakes, please inform him that I have done all that I can to prolong his life, and that I wish him a good death when the moment arrives." His face was solemn. T'Len nodded once again.

"I will do so, Doctor. I wish you peace and long life," she returned soberly—without the accompanying gesture. Her hands were full.

"Live long, and prosper," returned the doctor reflexively. He glanced at the closed bedroom door as if he were finally realizing that his illustrious patient would certainly do neither, and then turned brusquely. He didn't look back as he exited the house.

#######################

Commander Trip Tucker sat alone in the captain's dining room at 1750 hours awaiting the rest of the going away party. The room's lights were dimmed in keeping with his somber mood. He sipped his tea morosely, staring into the cup. _Chamomile._ The stuff wasn't too bad. At least he could sleep after he drank it. T'Mir hated it. She preferred root beer. He'd confiscated six bottles from the mess hall for their party. They stood in a row on the table in front of him with droplets of moisture pearled on their brown necks. He smiled a bit at the memory of T'Pol's reaction to T'Mir's discovery that root beer went admirably well with peanut butter, syrup and banana sandwiches. He'd held his tongue during T'Pol's five minute lecture about the sucrose content of the diet and dental caries. T'Mir had rolled her eyes.

_We've hardly had the chance to meet her, and now she's leaving, _he thought wistfully. He took another sip, and then the door opened. He looked up, and for a moment he thought T'Pol stood at the threshold, but the woman standing silhouetted in the light from the hallway wore an unadorned blue coverall rather than one of his wife's form-fitting uniforms. T'Mir's auburn hair was bound tightly at the back of her neck, forced into a smooth, severe style quite unlike her usual barely disciplined curls. Her face was solemn and composed—very Vulcan. Only her piercing blue eyes betrayed her human heritage. She nodded in greeting without smiling.

"Good evening, Commander," she told him. He smiled sadly, and then rose to meet her, tapping the illumination control on his way to brighten the room.

"You're awful formal tonight, darlin'," he replied. "What's the occasion?"

T'Mir's serenity broke for a moment, and she regarded him with a forlorn expression before regaining her control. She cleared her throat, staring at the deck plates.

_She's just a kid. Saying goodbye's probably harder for her than it is for us_, Trip realized suddenly.

"I am leaving soon. I must return to the discipline of my training or I will betray myself at my debriefing. When I return, you must be only Commander Charles Tucker, Chief Engineer of _Enterprise_ to me," responded T'Mir. Trip sighed.

_Exactly like her mama..._

"All right, then, ma'am," he teased gently, returning to the table and pulling out a chair for her. "Come sit down next ta me and tell this complete stranger what yer plans are after ya leave _Enterprise_...if it's not all top secret, that is," he amended. He gave her an expectant look. She hesitated for a moment, and then gave him a small sheepish smile as she approached the table.

"I suppose it is stupid of me to ruin our last hours together by overreacting, isn't it?" she replied quietly. His smile broadened and he pushed the chair snugly beneath her. Then he twisted off the cap of the first bottle of root beer and handed it to her as she sat down. She closed her eyes as she took the first swallow, abandoning all pretense of Vulcan control in her enjoyment of the taste. He chuckled. Finally giving up on the tea, he pushed it aside and opened his own bottle. They sat side by side for a moment, savoring the opportunity to share something singularly _theirs_. T'Mir swallowed and put her root beer deliberately on the table, as if she were trying to make it last longer. She sat back in her chair, seeming completely relaxed for the first time since she'd entered the room.

"When I leave here I'll be debriefed first," she began softly. "They do that first so you don't forget the details. Then they'll keep me basetime for a while to readjust. I've already been assigned to what the human students at the Temporal Academy used to call 'babysitting duty'." She raised an ironic brow and deadpanned, "I've never understood the reference, as performing such an assignment never involves being seated on or even in the general vicinity of an infant of any species." Trip nearly choked on his mouthful of root beer laughing at her joke.

When he was able to speak without dribbling on his shirt, he asked curiously, still grinning. "So...who're ya babysitting?"

She paused as if considering how much she should tell him, and then picked up her root beer again. "A Romulan recruit," she said blandly, and then took another swig. Fortunately for Trip, his mouth was empty when she dropped that bombshell.

"A _Romulan_?" he echoed in disbelief. "And they gave the assignment to you?" He shook his head wonderingly. "What do they want, another war on their hands?"

She raised a brow. "In my adopted basetime, Romulans, Humans, and Vulcans have been at peace for well over five hundred years."

"But you grew up fightin' 'em, T'Mir! They killed millions of your people. How can the TEA expect you to be objective about dealing first hand with one of 'em?" he protested.

T'Mir tipped her head in acknowledgement of his statement. "Ordinarily I'd agree with you," she admitted, "But this Romulan is different. I've had the opportunity to study him. He's had a most unusual upbringing." Trip eyed her suspiciously as she took another sip and swallowed. "In fact, I find many of his qualities quite admirable," she concluded succinctly. Then she said nothing for several seconds. Trip studied her expression with his tongue firmly tucked into his cheek, trying to decipher her meaning.

_Is it a "I've decided to postpone killing him for now" sort of admirable, or a "get ready for bumpy-headed grandkids" sort of admirable?_ he wondered. He still hadn't quite decided which when the acting captain, the third guest invited to their exclusive going away celebration, arrived—uncharacteristically several minutes late. Trip smiled at T'Pol in welcome and got up to pull out her chair. She gave him a tolerant look and sat down. She was cool and collected appearing, as usual, but he sensed tension in the bond.

"_Yes, darlin'...I know you're perfectly capable of pullin' out your own chair,"_ he sent teasingly, repeating a long-standing joke between them regarding her complete befuddlement over his old-fashioned southern manners. Her amusement lightened the mood, but she still seemed preoccupied.

"I apologize for being late. Captain Archer asked for a detailed status report when I visited him in Sickbay. Following that, he insisted that I admire his offspring and assist with the feeding process. Afterwards, I had to stop by my cabin for a change of clothing. Young Maria has formula retention issues," she announced dryly to both of them. Trip chuckled. T'Mir smirked a bit.

"I noticed that earlier," she said.

Trip pushed back from the table, glancing at T'Pol without a word.

_I'll call for dinner. Talk to T'Mir. She's upset about havin' to leave. _

T'Mir, oblivious to his comment, took another swallow of her root beer. T'Pol sat calmly with her hands clasped before her on the table gazing evenly at T'Mir. Neither of them said anything. Trip rolled his eyes and stepped to the comm.

"Tucker to Chef. We're all here and ready when you are."

"Of course, Commander. Crewman Prudhomme is on his way with the cart." Trip grinned. The dinner would be delicious, he was sure, but steward and part-time pastry chef Prudhomme made pecan pie good enough to die for. He turned back toward the table to find his wife and pseudo-daughter staring at each other across the table. He could sense T'Pol's reluctance to speak. He felt both an overwhelming sadness and a sense of pride and respect in the bond.

"So..." he said nonchalantly into the silence of the room as he took his seat again, "How're the captain and his family doin', T'Pol? And how's Hoshi?"

T'Pol disengaged her attention from T'Mir's face with seeming difficulty to address his question. Her face was calm, but Trip sensed her turmoil. He realized that her grief over the impending loss of the young woman they'd come to accept as their daughter was warring with her parental pride over the girl's very Vulcan response to her upcoming departure. Unlike Trip, T'Pol fully understood T'Mir's need for a return to discipline, and was supporting her efforts in the only way she could.

"Mrs. Archer has awakened and seems to be mentally intact, although still physically weak," replied T'Pol. "Hoshi was also weakened by her ordeal, but is recovering, thanks to Agent T'Mir's healing skills." She gave the girl a nod of gratitude, calling her by her title without a trace of familiarity in her manner. She fell silent after her brief status report, and her eyes fixed themselves on T'Mir's face. Abruptly, Trip felt grief welling in the bond again. T'Mir seemed to sense her foster mother's struggle, for she gave T'Pol the tiniest of sad smiles and reached out over the table to lay a hand over the older woman's hands where they were clasped together on the table.

"Commander... I'm sorry," began T'Mir hesitantly. T'Pol shook her head minutely and opened her hands to grip the girl's fingers in hers.

"Do not apologize," she murmured. Her posture was erect and her gaze was steady. She said emphatically, "You have done nothing which requires an apology."

T'Mir sighed, shaking her head. "You're wrong," she countered gently. "I've been very selfish. To spare you this pain, all I had to do was remain silent."

Her statement hung in the air for almost a full second before Trip shot it down. "Finding you and then losin' you is a damn sight better than not ever knowin' you at all," he told her firmly. He reached over and laid a hand on top of theirs. His eyes met his wife's for a moment, and she silently confirmed his statement. He turned back to T'Mir in full paternal authority mode.

"You believe me now, girl... I'm tellin' you the truth. We _both_ love you like you were our own Elizabeth. Don't you ever feel bad about tellin' us who you are, is that clear?"

T'Mir's lips twitched upward just a fraction. "Yes, sir," she replied.

The entry tone sounded loudly in the quiet room. Trip pulled his hand away. The women followed suit just in time to present a respectably professional picture for the steward who walked in pushing the cart. Trip closed his eyes and inhaled as his plate was placed before him. The smell was heavenly, just like home. He opened his eyes, licking his lips.

T'Mir eyed her plate hesitantly. "What is it?" she asked. Trip grinned at her.

"Red beans and rice, mustard greens and cornbread...the meatless meal of champions!" he replied enthusiastically. "Go ahead and dig in, but save room for dessert!"

#######################

Arabella of the Sixth House stared out of the window of the cabin she shared with the newly appointed commanding officer of the _Saber of Betazed_. The flagship of Betazed's defense fleet had never been intended as a warship, and when the message from Starfleet had arrived by subspace transceiver mere days following the departure of the starship _Enterprise_, the _Saber of Betazed_ had been pulled off defense duty to serve once again in a diplomatic capacity.

Arabella had been content to remain at home, raising her daughter and managing her household, a task that was, in her mother the Matriarch's opinion, beneath her—and more appropriately performed by a low ranking male. Of course, her mother had never approved of her partnership contract with Lana.

_Captain Lana of the Fifth House_, she amended with a secret smile. The two of them completed each other, and if her mother would never understand that, then at least her father was supportive. Galen had been horrified when both Lana and Arabella had announced their intention to travel to Earth together and to take their daughter Maya with them, but his wife's wishes had prevailed, as usual. The _Saber_ was traveling to Earth so that Marella, Arabella's older sister—the smart one that their mother loved best, could attempt to instruct a group of human telepaths in the defense technique that she'd developed which had allowed _Enterprise_ to defeat an entire Romulan attack force in orbit around Betazed. They would be in the Sol system for at least a year.

_Likely longer, if that dumpy little ambassador mother likes so much is the most powerful telepath they could find, _thought Arabella spitefully. She'd had no intention of remaining behind and under her mother's thumb without Lana for a whole year. The prospect was intolerable. To her surprise, her mother had agreed with her. After the Matriarch's assertion that "no place could be safer than a starship crewed by the best telepathic defense team on Betazed traveling two hundred light years _away_ from the Romulan front", Galen had been forced to agree with her, and Arabella had promptly been charged not only with the care of her own daughter, but also with the almost six year old heir to the Sixth House and probable eventual Matriarch of all Betazed if she chose to be, her niece Lianna.

She heard a rustle behind her and turned in the dimly lit room. The two girls were already asleep, curled together in the cubbyhole bed they shared. Lianna turned restlessly as if she were dreaming and then settled down again. Her fair skin contrasted with Maya's dusky beauty. The two of them were so unlike, and not in the ways that Arabella had expected. Maya was just over a year old now, and everything concerning her was a struggle. Arabella had always thought that age two was the age when the "no's" began. Maya was evidently very precocious.

Lianna was actually a help with her younger cousin. The older child was such a scarily powerful telepath that Arabella had initially feared she would be uncontrollable. Surprisingly, Lianna was an easygoing and amiable little girl, wise beyond her years. It would have been easy to become jealous of her and the close relationship she seemed to have with her grandmother, a relationship that Arabella had never been able to cultivate. Irana was as loving and open with Lianna as she was rigid and disapproving of Arabella, and nothing Arabella could do seemed to change that. She couldn't bring herself to hate the little girl, though. She was simply too sweet and lovable to dislike for very long.

Arabella lifted the timepiece she kept suspended around her neck and looked at it yet again. Lana was very late. She wondered what was keeping her this time. It wasn't as if they were in a war zone. They were traveling through Vulcan space now, and were almost to their destination. What could she possibly be doing that kept her away from their cabin every evening until the wee hours? Arabella had asked, and all she'd gotten were excuses about being "new to this captain business" and having to "live up to the Matriarch's expectations".

Arabella knew that Lana had been promoted two ranks at once in order to gain command of the _Saber_, and that some in the fleet believed that nepotism had played a role in her promotion. Arabella found it unlikely. The Matriarch had promoted Lana herself, in spite of rather than because of her relationship with Arabella. Irana vehemently disapproved of the two of them together, but apparently just as vehemently had insisted that Lana be in command of this diplomatic mission despite her youth. It was ridiculous, but there were times when Arabella was jealous of her own spouse's relationship with her mother. Lana had served under Irana before her elevation to Matriarch, when Irana herself had been nothing more than the commanding officer of the _Saber_, and the trust she bore for Lana evidently knew no bounds. It was that trust that drove Lana to perfect her command skills, and her obsession with perfection that kept them apart. Arabella sighed. Even here in the vacuum of space her mother was in control. She shook her head and gave up waiting. It would be a long day tomorrow. The girls usually woke early.

She dimmed the lights further and climbed between the sheets. She'd barely closed her eyes when she heard a whimper from the far side of the room. When whimpering became sobbing, she opened her eyes again with a resigned sigh and turned toward the small bed set into the wall, part of an automatic escape pod designed to protect the girls in case of depressurization. Maya was still out cold, but Lianna sat bolt upright in bed, sobbing quietly. Arabella shook her head ruefully. She'd been waiting for this since they'd come aboard. Both of Lianna's parents had died aboard this ship while she'd been traveling with them almost two years previously. The ship had undergone extensive refitting since then, but much of the interior decor remained the same. It had only been a matter of time, Arabella was sure, before Lianna would at least unconsciously make the connection.

"_Lianna, baby, come here,"_ sent Arabella gently. _"What's wrong?"_

The child's wide black eyes contrasted sharply with her pale complexion in the darkness. She stared at Arabella solemnly, sniffing back her tears.

"_They're coming...,"_ she sent ominously, the childish purity of her thoughts contrasting sharply with the sheer power behind them. The strength of her sending made Arabella wince.

"_The bad people are coming."_

#######################

T'Pol stood beside the table where the leavings of their supper lay. Trip stood at her side, but she barely noticed the warmth of his mental presence. Her attention was entirely focused on the young face in front of her.

_She is not my daughter, and yet she is... And now we must say goodbye._ The thought sent pain through her. Her right hand lifted of its own volition to touch an auburn curl that had escaped T'Mir's hair elastic. Their eyes met. T'Mir grasped T'Pol's hand and held it in place, simultaneously extending her own hand to touch the older woman's temple lightly with the tips of three fingers and her thumb. She hesitated a moment with a questioning look on her face. T'Pol realized what the girl was offering, and nearly stepped back apprehensively. Mind melds with anyone other than her bondmate were not on her list of preferred activities. The hurt expression on T'Mir's face at her hesitation made her reconsider. _Perhaps just a surface meld...to say goodbye,_ she decided. As the thought occurred to her, her barriers fell, and she sensed Trip's presence in her mind. T'Mir extended her opposite hand and rested her fingertips on the side of Trip's head as well.

"_You all right, T'Pol?"_ His concerned sending reached her just as she nodded once, maintaining eye contact with T'Mir, and deliberately spread her own fingers over the girl's temple. She closed her eyes as T'Mir's muttered words sounded in her ears.

"Our minds are merging. Our minds are one..."

T'Pol steeled herself for the invasion that, based on all of her previous experiences, a mind meld with anyone but her mate was sure to involve. Even T'Pau had hardly been gentle. Instead, she sensed a hesitant mental presence, almost childish in its desire for acceptance and approval, hovering tantalizingly out of reach.

"_T'Mir?"_ she ventured, dropping the last of her shields.

_T'Pol opened her eyes and found herself on a brightly white sandy beach with the surf pounding rhythmically to her left and dunes covered with sea grass waving in the salt-scented breeze to her right. The deserted shore extended without end before her. _

"_Hey, darlin'!" Trip's voice called from behind her. She turned to find her husband, dressed for the occasion in a loudly floral shirt and ragged khaki shorts, walking arm in arm with a slender girl dressed in a halter top and a sarong skirt in a matching floral print. The girl possessed a wind-tousled head full of auburn curls which so effectively hid her brows and ears that it took T'Pol a moment to recognize her smiling face. T'Mir held out a hand._

"_Come and wade with us," she invited. T'Pol had never seen her so relaxed... so human. T'Pol studied both of them. She'd never really noticed before how much T'Mir resembled Trip when she smiled. They truly looked like father and daughter, except for the fact that Trip looked too young to have a daughter T'Mir's age._

"_I'm not dressed for wading. You two go ahead," she demurred. Trip dropped T'Mir's arm and stood with hands on his hips, staring at T'Pol in consternation._

"_T'Pol! Just change!" he insisted with an incredulous smile. _

_T'Mir gave her an understanding look. "I retrieved a memory of the proper attire for this setting from Commander Tucker. Perhaps you could do the same," she suggested. "Just let him decide what you should wear."_

_T'Pol's eyes narrowed as she inspected Trip's irrepressibly mischievous expression. She decided not to take the chance, and in a blink attired herself in an outfit to match T'Mir's. Trip's smile broadened. She sensed his approval and his desire as he gave her a once over from head to foot. _

"_**Behave!"**__ she sent teasingly, flattered by his attention despite herself. Trip's tongue took up residence in his cheek, but he nodded once in mocking acquiescence. T'Mir smiled with delight and extended her hands. Trip and T'Pol each took one, and they turned toward the surf._

_Being Vulcan, T'Pol possessed an infallible inner time sense, and although that sense told her that mere minutes were elapsing, somehow the three of them subjectively spent a long, lazy, sunny afternoon at the beach—talking, wading, and enjoying each other's company. At the end of several subjective hours they sat on the sand sipping imaginary virgin pina coladas and watching the sun set in vivid hues of orange tinged with pink._

"_I wish..." T'Mir began wistfully. She sighed and stopped mid-sentence. She looked thoughtfully out over the water for several seconds, and then she smiled a bit. Sea birds squawked in the distance. The surf struck the shore in an irregular rhythm. Trip reached out and clasped T'Pol's hand, his eyes fixed on the girl's face as if he were memorizing her features. T'Mir turned to face them._

"_I have a story to tell you both," she said, with an expression on her face that promised good things. "It's about my temporal mechanics instructor at the academy. He was a base-timer." At their puzzled expressions, she continued. "That means he was born in and lived in the approved timeline. He wasn't an agent. He went home to his family at night," she explained. Her smile grew broader and her eyes twinkled. "The man was a stickler for detail, but he really knew his subject." She paused. T'Pol raised an expectant brow._

_T'Mir bit her lip as if to keep from laughing, and then, all in a rush, said, "...And his ears were pointed because he was part Vulcan and his name was Charles Sorak Tucker. He said he was named after two very famous ancestors."_

_T'Pol blinked, absorbing the information she'd just given them. "Sorak was my father's name," she said. T'Mir's grin broadened._

"_Exactly," she said with relish._

_Trip stared at them both. His face split in a delighted grin. "So... you're sayin' that T'Pol and I... that we..."_

"_Of course, despite this unusual coincidence..." interrupted T'Pol with emphasis, eyeing both of them with admonishment, "... you are unable to tell us more without risking your position within the TEA and potentially affecting the approved timeline."_

_T'Mir's face sobered—to a point. Her eyes still sparkled with suppressed merriment over their reaction to her news, but her expression changed to one of polite attention—an expression more appropriate for a Vulcan._

"_You are correct, Commander," she confirmed gently. With the slightest of wistful smiles, she set her empty glass down in the sand and stood up. Her clothing suddenly morphed into the dark blue coverall she'd been wearing before their impromptu vacation had begun. The sun, setting behind her, backlit her curls in burnished copper tones. _

"_Take care of each other," she began softly. Trip scrambled to his feet. T'Pol could sense his dismay over T'Mir's imminent departure, but he didn't say anything. Instead, he held out both arms and smiled invitingly. T'Mir raised a brow at him, and then abandoned her attempt at Vulcan decorum to step up and throw both arms firmly about him, eliciting a pained grunt._

"_You be careful, now," Trip managed to whisper, and squeezed back. They released each other finally, and T'Mir turned toward T'Pol. There was truly nothing to say except the obvious._

"_Peace and long life, T'Mir of Vulcan," whispered T'Pol. She fought the urge to shed the tears her heart was demanding, and remained dry-eyed—or at least she remained so here in her imagination. A part of her could sense the wetness on her cheeks as she stood in the Captain's dining room locked in a meld with the girl she'd come to accept as her daughter._

"_Live long and prosper, Commander," replied the girl stoically. She stood proudly and solemnly, staring at T'Pol for several seconds before she broke down and threw both arms around T'Pol's neck._

"_I will see you both again if it is within my power to do so...I promise!" T'Mir whispered fiercely into T'Pol's shoulder. It was too much. Tears spilled over then, but T'Pol felt no shame. She wrapped both arms around her daughter and held on tight. Trip stepped up and enveloped them both, and they embraced until their tears were dry. _

It seemed a mutual decision when they broke the meld and found themselves back in the Captain's dining room. T'Mir stepped back, gave them both her wry little smile, activated the temporal stabilizer she had wrapped around her upper arm, and vanished, leaving them standing with empty arms.

#######################

_An Introduction to the Use of Tele-Empathic Resonance Techniques and Their Effects on Latent Telepaths._

Marella sighed. She'd revised the title of her course syllabus seven times and it still seemed awkward and pretentious. _Maybe I should just call it "Gorking Romulans 101", _she thought, only half-jokingly.

The comm call signal sounded. She reached across the desk in her quarters to activate it.

"Marella here," she responded, expecting a request for a headache remedy or something similar. In addition to her newly acquired position as the Betazoid medical ambassador to Earth, she was still serving as ship's medical officer.

"'Rella? It's me."

Marella smiled knowingly. _Lana must be working late again_, she thought. Arabella only used the childish nickname when she was lonely or she wanted something.

"Is there a problem, 'Bella?" she responded teasingly. Arabella had always hated the fact that their names rhymed, but, for once, her baby sister completely ignored the jibe.

"Ummm... should I be concerned that Lianna can't sleep because she's sure that something terrible's about to happen?" she asked hesitantly, sounding worried.

"She's probably just finally associating this ship with her parents' death," Marella reassured her.

"That's what I thought at first, too," replied Arabella, "...but she's trying to send me what she's sensing, and I've never felt anything like it before. She's scaring me!" Her voice shook and she sounded on the verge of tears.

Marella rolled her eyes. Her sister could be such a drama queen.

"I'm on my way," she replied tolerantly, grabbing her medical kit from the chair beside her. Lianna was probably fine, but it sounded like Arabella needed something to help her sleep.

As she pushed back from the desk in her quarters an alarm began to sound, blaring rhythmically. When she opened the door it became nearly deafening, reverberating down the corridor. As she made her way at a rapid walk toward the cabin Arabella shared with Lana and the girls, the ship shuttered as if colliding with a massive object. The impact nearly knocked her off her feet.

"_Arabella!"_ she sent as forcefully as she could as she approached her sister's cabin. Arabella met her at the door in a panic, eyes wide and hyperventilating. Behind her, both Maya and Lianna were screaming.

"They're here! They're here!" cried the little girl over her infant cousin's wails.

Her shrill voice was piercing, but it was nothing compared to what she was broadcasting mentally. Now that Marella was in the same room with the child she could sense what Lianna was sensing, and the import of it made Marella's blood run cold. She grabbed Arabella by one arm and pulled her toward the emergency pod that doubled as a crib for the children, speaking firmly and clearly to her sister in an attempt to penetrate her panic.

"We're under attack. Get inside. Take care of the girls. I need to get to Sickbay," said Marella, making eye contact with the younger woman. Arabella turned her head toward the emergency pod as if to comply, but when Marella moved to leave she felt desperate fingers clutching her sleeve.

"Don't leave me!" Arabella begged. As Marella reached to pry her hand away, the comm system began broadcasting an automated alarm.

"Decompression alert. Decompression alert. Emergency bulkheads activating. All hands report to emergency escape pods."

Marella tore her arm out of Arabella's grip and raced out of the cabin. As she reached the corridor, she saw the emergency bulkhead slam shut.

"Rings and sabers!" she cursed. There was no way to get to Sickbay now. She turned to the comm station on the wall.

"Marella to the bridge."

There was no response, only ominous static. She pressed the button again with a sinking heart.

"Marella to Sickbay."

Still nothing. She pressed the all-call button.

"This is the Chief Medical Officer. Can anyone hear me?"

More static crackled, and then a voice replied in a husky whisper.

"This is Chief Engineer Donata. Stay off the comm and get to the nearest emergency pod, Marella. We've been boarded. The bridge is destroyed, warp engines are disabled and my controls are fried. I've set the core to blow manually. Get off the ship now. You have one minute."

Marella winced sympathetically. Donata was a tough old bird, difficult to get along with on the best of days, but she didn't deserve to die like this—of course, neither had the bridge crew. Arabella was going to be hysterical when she found out.

"Acknowledged, Chief. Good luck," replied Marella sincerely. It took her only a few seconds to make it back to Arabella's quarters. She ran across the room and dove into the small pod, sealing the hatch behind her.

"What's happened? What's wrong?" Arabella demanded. Marella ignored her, following the prompts as rapidly as she could manage to detach the pod. With a hiss and a sudden jerk, the explosive bolts fired, propelling them away from the ship. The pod rotated nauseatingly as it was pushed several kilometers in just a few seconds by automatic thrusters. Maya, who'd been clinging to her mother, began to cry. Lianna remained strangely silent. After her initial fearful outburst, the child had curled herself up in a ball in the corner of the mattress which formed the floor of the small pod, clinging to a handhold with an expression much too serious and solemn for a normal child her age. Marella felt certain that she knew precisely what was going on. The chamber jerked sharply as the stabilizer jets kicked in, stopping their spin just in time for Marella to get a ringside view through the porthole of the _Saber _exploding silently in the vacuum of space, taking a Romulan warbird with it.

########################

Trip followed T'Pol down the corridor solemnly, one step behind her, as if the two of them were proceeding to a staff briefing that neither of them wanted to attend. He was grieving over T'Mir's departure, and was certain that T'Pol was, too. It had been mere minutes since she'd left, just long enough to have the steward clear the meal and for them to come up with a reasonable excuse for T'Mir's absence. Not even a Vulcan recovered that quickly. Her shields were impenetrable, though, her face unreadable. She stopped at the door of her quarters and met his eyes with a cool expression.

"It's late. I'll meet you for breakfast at 0730," she said calmly, and then turned to enter her cabin. The iciness of her manner chilled him to the bone—and then made him angry. He stepped forward, grasped her upper arm and whispered emphatically, "Oh, no...You're not gonna do this, T'Pol! It's only 2100 hours. Lemme in and let's talk."

The physical contact allowed him to break past the most superficial of her barriers, and he felt the grief seething within her. His anger fled immediately, replaced by concern.

"You can't stuff this. You need to share it or it'll eat you up inside," he told her softly, gazing sympathetically into her eyes. He smiled wryly. "That's what husbands are for, T'Pol. Let me do my job."

She said nothing, but she yielded, stepping aside to allow him entry before shutting the door.

"Shared grief is a human custom. Vulcans don't indulge in it," she told him stiffly, standing with her hands clasped behind her as he faced her from across the room.

"You did when Elizabeth died," he challenged. "Why is this any different?" She winced visibly at his comparison. He immediately felt remorse over bringing up the subject. _But somebody's got to make her deal with this, dammit! _he thought.

"T'Mir is not dead. She is simply...unavailable," replied T'Pol stoutly. "There is no logical reason for grief."

Trip smiled sadly, shaking his head. He stepped forward and placed both hands on her shoulders, brushing them gently down over her upper arms the way he knew she liked. "No reason? T'Pol, we'll probably never see her again! It's perfectly normal to miss her," he protested.

She closed her eyes; a stricken expression was on her face. "I'm in command. I can't allow anything to distract me now."

He continued to stroke her arms softly, smiling down at her. "Even an acting captain needs the occasional distraction, T'Pol. 'All work and no play...' and all that, ya know."

T'Pol opened her eyes and raised a brow at him. Her hands came to rest palm down on his chest. "That is a most illogical concept, husband," she replied mildly. He bent his head and took the tip of her right ear between his teeth. She inhaled sharply, closing her eyes again. He chuckled, and followed the line of her jaw with soft kisses until he reached her lips.

"Maybe so...but it's true," he countered into her mouth, smiling. He held back from contact, trying to tempt her into opening up to him. He could feel her barriers falling. Her hands slid over his chest, causing shivers to run up his spine before locking behind his head. The movement brought her lush body in full contact with his. He groaned, and was about to give up and just kiss her when she tugged firmly on the back of his head and did it for him. The sensation of her hot tongue in his mouth and her sudden passionate presence inside his head made him cry out. There was no more discussion as their clothes were discarded. Grief brought tears to his eyes. She kissed them away. Sadness was replaced by joy as they joined, despair replaced by hope. They belonged together. They completed each other, and they were destined to continue to do so, at least for a while. It was enough.

########################

"Captain, I'm getting an automated distress call. I don't recognize the ship's ID code, but I don't think it's human or Vulcan."

Paul Mayweather looked up from his list of passenger requests and gave the helmsman a harried look. The Vulcan female passenger was at it again. This time she wanted a five degree increase in the temperature of the minister's cabin. It was already set at 37 degrees Celsius. The radiant heat alone would fry every computer terminal in the vicinity. Despite his boy-with-a-toy glee over the brand new warp 3 engine Starfleet had installed on his ship in exchange for the _Horizon's_ new tour of duty, he found himself nostalgic at times for the simplicity of the Dreylax/Vega run. Dilithium ore never complained.

"Check the Starfleet diplomatic registry, Johnny," he told the tow-headed young man. "Any ship legitimately traveling in this area of space should be on it." He watched as the baby-faced adopted son of his second cousins did a proficient data search and smiled. Young Mr. Orcutt was adapting quite well to his change of posting. Although he lacked the family resemblance, his parents had apparently managed to impart the family skills.

"It's a Betazoid diplomatic courier, sir... the _Saber of Betazed_," the boy confirmed. "It's an escape pod beacon," he added in alarm, looking up from his terminal. "The main ship's beacon isn't registering."

"How far is it from our present heading? How much time will we lose?" asked Mayweather. He'd been told in no uncertain terms by both Starfleet Command and the Vulcan High Council that his passenger's timely arrival to Earth took top priority. He could see why. The old guy had seemed on the brink of death when he'd boarded the ship in Vulcan orbit. It was possible that the minister would die enroute, Mayweather had been told. Not if he could help it. The _Horizon_ was no hearse.

Helmsman Orcutt did some quick calculations. "Only three hours at warp 3," he replied with a hopeful look. He'd grown up on a Boomer freighter too, and was positively beside himself over the _Horizon's_ newly acquired capabilities. Warp 3 was their theoretically maximum speed with the new engine. To preserve structural integrity, though, they'd been traveling along at a not inconsiderable warp 2.8. Although their current speed was still a full order of magnitude faster than their previous engine had been capable of, Johnny's puppy dog expression spoke of his sincere desire to stretch his wings.

"All right, son," replied Mayweather just a little indulgently. He grinned back at Johnny. "Let's see what this baby can do!" He reached out a hand and activated the ship's comm.

"Bridge to engine room. We're responding to a distress signal. I need maximum warp!"

########################

"Maximum warp!" grumbled Rianna as she monitored the new engine's readouts. "As if this were some sort of battle cruiser!" Sometimes her oldest son was just too big for his britches.

She brought up the internal scanner's datastream and set alarms to monitor structural integrity. The engine might be new, but the ship herself was almost as old as her chief engineer and sometime medic, and Rianna knew from personal experience just how old _that_ was. At this speed something was likely to fall right off at any minute.

She picked up a wrench and had to think for a second before she remembered what she'd intended to do with it. The subspace message she'd received from Travis had her rattled. She'd expected a message about wanting to see them again now that the _Horizon_ was frequenting the Sol system. Instead, she'd gotten the surprise of her life. She hadn't known whether to cry or laugh over the vids of her half-Betazoid granddaughter. The child was so much like Travis at that age.

Rianna finished loosening the bolts she was working on, laid aside the wrench, and yanked the access panel free to climb behind it and lie on her back, performing the necessary maintenance without even having to think about it.

_How could he have done something like that? I taught him to take precautions! And then, to leave his own child on an alien planet to be raised by strangers!_ She sat up again and reached for the wrench, viciously yanking on the stem bolts that held the panel in place to close it, taking her frustration out on the inanimate objects around her.

_Guess not __**all**__ of them were complete strangers...,_ she thought with a rueful chuckle, shaking her head. He hadn't been very forthcoming about the circumstances of the infant's conception, but both of the young women on the vids Travis had sent were very beautiful. It was a peculiar situation, but she seriously doubted that he'd been forced into it.

She sighed and climbed laboriously to her feet with a crackle from her creaky old knees and back despite the ship's point eight standard gravity. The worst part of the situation, she supposed, was never being able to meet her own granddaughter. She didn't see how she'd ever be able to go to Betazed. Even after this war was over fuel costs would be prohibitive, and even at warp 3 it would take them over a year to get there.

_Maybe I should ask Starfleet if I can hitch a ride the next time Enterprise heads in that direction?_ she mused with a wistful smile. _Paul would probably love to get rid of me and hire a chief engineer who'll take his orders without argument._ Try as she might, she never seemed to be able to forget that "Captain Paul Mayweather" was also her baby boy, and their interactions often amused the rest of the crew. She hadn't told Paul about Travis' message yet. His reaction was going to be interesting, to say the least. He didn't think much of Travis' maturity or stability, and this situation wasn't going to help matters at all. Maybe it was time for her to retire. She wondered what the weather was like on Betazed.

#######################

Marella woke yet again to the sound of soft, hopeless sobbing. Both Lianna and Maya were finally asleep, curled up together on their little corner of the mattress, exhausted from the day's adventures. Arabella had pestered Marella until she'd told her what she knew. Marella regretted it now. Lana had been a treasure. They'd all loved her. Her loss was tragic, as was the loss of the rest of the crew. She'd known that Arabella would grieve. She just didn't realize she'd do it so loudly. Marella rolled over and curled around her sister where she lay sniffing and hiccuping in the fetal position. The physical contact enabled her to reach past the shields Arabella had erected to protect the children.

"_I'm here, 'Bella, sweetie. I'm here_...," she sent blearily, half asleep. All Marella could sense from her was raw grief and the sincere desire to die. The first was expected. The second woke her up completely in alarm. She sat up and opened the medical kit she still wore over one shoulder. _"None of that, now. Lana wouldn't want that. The girls need you_," Marella soothed. She set the hypospray and pressed it to her sister's neck. Blessed silence ensued.

Marella tucked the hypospray back into her medical kit and then craned her neck to look at the clock. They'd been in the escape pod for six hours. That left roughly another twelve hours before oxygen levels would start to run low. It wasn't designed for a lengthy occupancy, only granting enough time for rescue during a battle situation when it was assumed that other ships would be in the vicinity to render aid. Marella sighed and laid her head back down. _A person at rest consumes less oxygen,_ she reminded herself firmly. _Go to sleep._ Despite her fatigue, though, her eyes stubbornly refused to close. She focused her gaze on the wall in front of her and willed her breathing to slow. The soft susurration of air traveling between the parted lips of the four occupants of the pod was the only sound she heard. She concentrated on the hypnotic rhythm until her eyelids flickered shut...

The blare of the proximity alarm jerked her awake with a sudden start. Maya woke as well, and began to cry. Lianna, surprisingly, reached for her infant cousin and soothed her with remarkable maturity. Arabella slept a drug-induced sleep, oblivious. Marella sat up to look out of the porthole. The pod had no transmitter other than its emergency beacon, and so she had no way of communicating with their rescuers, but it was obvious that they'd been discovered. The outline of the ship was unfamiliar to her, but the name painted on the hull was in English, the language she'd been studying for the past several weeks. The ship's name was _Horizon_.

########################

Lieutenant Commander Janice Hess waddled into Sickbay with a wide grin on her face. Her shift was over. It was baby time.

"Good evening, Lieutenant Commander!" called Phlox with even more than his usual cheerfulness as he walked out of the lab where his menagerie was housed. "Ready for your checkup?"

Hess grimaced. "I forgot it was time already," she admitted. She walked to a biobed and awkwardly hoisted herself onto it. She gazed longingly across the chamber at the curtained alcove which was now the Archers' domain as Doctor Phlox scanned her hugely pregnant abdomen.

"Young Milo is strong and healthy!" he announced with a broad smile. He showed her the screen and she admired her son, who weighed over six pounds now and was at that moment sucking his thumb. It was difficult to tell from a scan, but it certainly seemed as if he resembled his father.

"He's very long for a 38 weeker!" exclaimed Phlox. Hess smiled to herself.

_Definitely like his father!_ she decided.

"Any contractions?" asked Phlox as he put the scanner into its niche and downloaded the images. He turned to a nearby work station to input his exam findings and paused, looking at her inquiringly with his fingers over the keys.

"A few," admitted Hess. "Mostly when I exert myself. I had three or four back to back after my workout yesterday. I was about to call you, but they stopped," she shrugged.

Phlox smiled and chuckled as he keyed in her history. "You may want to hold off on the workouts if you really expect to have this baby in San Francisco," he replied. Hess looked dismayed.

"You really think so? I'm not due for two weeks, and we're supposed to be at Jupiter Station in five days. I'm gonna make it, right?"

Phlox shrugged. "I have no idea. The estimation of due dates is far from an exact science, Lieutenant Commander. You could have this baby tomorrow, or not for another month. In humans, the 40 week gestational period has always been plus or minus two weeks." He grinned sympathetically at her alarm. "If exertion triggers contractions, I can put you on medical leave," he offered. "That might buy you some time."

Hess laughed and shook her head. "No thanks, Doc. I'd go nuts in my cabin for another five days. I_ will_ stay out of the gym, though." She slid down carefully from the biobed and looked over at the opposite end of the room. Cutler must have heard her arrive; she'd pulled back the curtains and the captain was helping his wife into a wheelchair. Hess grinned brightly and headed off toward the trio.

"Thanks, Doc! Time to babysit!" she called over her shoulder.

"Is that you, Jan? Don't tell me you've come to visit me again?" Elena Archer squinted across the room with a smile. Her vision was still affected by the eclampsia, but Phlox had reassured them that the change wasn't permanent. The captain flipped her footrests down with practiced skill, guided her feet into them, and then stepped behind her chair and started pushing her toward the exit. Cutler followed them carrying a padd to record her physical therapy notes.

"You? Why would I visit you? I'm here for my baby fix!" teased Janice as she stooped to give Elena a one-armed hug and a kiss on the cheek where they met mid-way across Sickbay.

Captain Archer chuckled. "We appreciate your diligence, Lieutenant Commander. We'll be in the gym if you need us."

"Take your time!" returned Hess blithely, making a beeline for the incubators. To her disappointment, the infants had apparently just been fed. Maria had a blissful expression on her chubby face. She burped in her sleep, dribbling milk. Jon Jr., on the other hand, was calmly awake and alert. Compared to his sister he was small and lean. Since he was awake, Janice had no qualms about scooping him up and having a seat in one of the rocking chairs that she and Commander Tucker had cobbled together. The baby held her gaze with an expression that seemed oddly wise for a week old infant. She stroked his peach-fuzz covered head with one hand. It fit within her palm. He was getting bigger by the day, but still weighed less than four pounds.

"Hello, sweet boy! My little Milo's already bigger than you!" she whispered fondly. Jon stared back at her, as solemn as a Vulcan. She laughed. "But you're a smart one, aren't you?" she teased.

Young Jon smiled—or perhaps it was just a gas pain.

#######################

Phlox had to forcibly restrain himself from jumping up and down with glee. The evidence was unmistakable. His experiment was a success. He bounced subtly on his toes as he watched Liz Cutler exit with the Archers. As fond as he was of the girl, it would hardly do to involve her in his not-exactly-sanctioned research. Once Janice Hess was occupied with the infants, oblivious to her surroundings, he stepped to the curtained alcove where Hoshi Sato slept. Lieutenant Commander Reed had already made his rounds for the evening. The coast was clear.

Phlox had to be careful. Although he'd been given no specific orders to the contrary, had he actually asked permission to do the research he'd been doing in the months since the surgical transporter had come into their possession, he was virtually certain that the answer would have been no. So he hadn't asked. As far as he was concerned, until he delivered the device into the hands of Starfleet researchers it was his to do with as he pleased.

_How do the humans put it? "Finders, keepers_?" he thought with a grin.

He hadn't been entirely truthful with the captain. Although it was true that he'd never operated the surgical transporter for obstetric purposes, he had been doing some less drastic experimentation on his own. In the early hours of gamma shift when the ship was being operated by a skeleton crew of less experienced personnel, Phlox, without the human need for sleep, had been investigating the potential uses of the device they'd picked up in the _Kreptagh_ system.

Combat injuries were on the rise. Particularly deadly were the plasma burns and coolant leak burns which would eat away the victim's skin and soft tissue, leaving them at risk for secondary infections and sepsis. Synthetic skin replacements and cultured skin graft materials were available, but they couldn't replace lost muscle and subcutaneous fat. Phlox's first thought when he'd seen what the surgical transporter could do had been—what if we could replace lost tissue with the transporter?

His first experiment had involved a pair of furry little animals humans called guinea pigs. Their varied fur patterns had been ideal for his purposes. It hadn't seemed to bother them at all when he'd used the transporter to exchange a patch of skin and subcutaneous tissue—with attached fur—from the gold colored animal to the black one and vice versa. Unfortunately, the animals' immune systems rapidly recognized the exchanged tissue as foreign, and both animals now would require daily doses of immune suppressants for the rest of their short little lives to prevent rejection of the tissue. So he'd tried again. For the second experiment, he used the recipient's own cells as the source material for the transport so the DNA would match, and used the pattern of the donor stored in the buffer of the transporter for the structure of the tissue, reasoning that if he used the pattern of the recipient there'd be no way to tell the difference and no way to determine if the experiment had been a success. He'd achieved his goal after several attempts. The gold guinea pig had ended up with a neat black patch in the middle of his back—no rejection. Last night he'd done an entire limb. The replacement functioned just as well as the original, and the recipient was still alive, without a trace of rejection. It was the medical breakthrough of the century. All he had to do now was write up his findings. Starfleet medical would no doubt want to continue his work. Perhaps in a year or so human trials for skin grafting might be possible. He hummed cheerfully as he took a seat at his console to begin writing. Medicine was just so much fun.

########################

Liz Cutler trudged wearily down the corridor to her quarters. These evening physical therapy sessions were exhausting. Mrs. Archer tried her best, but she was still so weak that Liz ended supporting half of her weight. The captain tried to help, but most of the time he just got in the way—and made "suggestions" about how he thought she could do her job better.

_It's a good thing that we have less than a week left of this,_ thought Liz irritably. _Otherwise I might just end up in the brig next to Rostov for assaulting a superior officer!_

She entered the door code and stepped into the cabin. A shower was going to feel so good! As the door shut behind her she turned with great anticipation toward the entrance to the bathroom, but stopped when she noticed the "message waiting" icon traveling across the screen of the computer console on her desk. She plopped down in the chair with a puzzled expression. Who would be calling her now? She'd just talked to her sister the day before to plan her visit home. It was all arranged, money was tight back home, and subspace calls were expensive. She clicked on the icon, and her heart skipped a beat when the Starfleet Security seal materialized in the middle of the screen. The message was encrypted, and for a panicked moment she completely forgot the decryption code she'd been given the last time they'd left Earth. She'd almost forgotten the encounter altogether. She hadn't even seen the face of the agent who'd asked for her help.

_It was real_, she reminded herself. _He said they'd be contacting me if their operative needed confidential medical assistance._ There had been no time for questions. She didn't even know which member of _Enterprise's_ crew was the intelligence agent she was supposed to help.

_Okay, Liz...chill_, she told herself, closing her eyes and exhaling. The code came to her, and she entered it. A text document came up, no video. Her eyes widened as she read.

_This information is Top Secret. Do not divulge it to anyone without explicit permission from Starfleet Intelligence. _

_It has come to the attention of our research and development division that your ship's Chief Medical Officer has been engaging in unauthorized medical experiments using equipment which is the sole property of Starfleet Intelligence. He is considered a security risk at this time due to the escalation of conflict between humans and non-humans both in-system and out. You have been assigned to determine the exact nature of this research and to communicate any and all findings to the following address. After you have done so, stand by for further instructions. _

Below the text was a subspace address, but Liz didn't see it. She was too busy fuming.

_They want me to spy on Phlox! _

That had never been part of the deal. If the guy who'd initially recruited her had suggested it she would have said not only "no", but "hell, no". Obviously, Starfleet Intelligence had known that. That's why they'd waited until now to tell her what they really wanted from her. They knew she didn't have a choice unless she wanted to flush her career right down the toilet. She stared at her orders, too angry to think straight. Despite their mutual decision to end their short-lived romantic relationship, Phlox was an irreplaceable part of her life now—a friend, mentor, and an endless source of encouragement. There was no way in hell that she'd ever betray him. Now she just had to figure out how to avoid it without trashing her career.

########################

Paul Mayweather strode into _Horizon's_ compact sickbay and stopped short. A crying toddler bearing an uncanny resemblance to his baby brother at that age ran straight at him, colliding with his legs before running around behind him to escape his mother.

"Maya...," coaxed Rianna Mayweather in an oddly tender tone. "Come here, sweetheart. I won't hurt you." She knelt in the center of the room, laid the medical scanner she'd evidently been trying to use on the child on the deck beside her, and held out her arms. A curly haired little girl stood beside her. The girl's eyes were black on black. She looked maybe five or six years old. She said nothing, staring at the teary-eyed toddler. Then she held her hand out imperiously. The baby released his legs and walked reluctantly forward with a pouting expression. At first he thought that she was obeying his mother until she went straight to the black-eyed girl, put out her tiny brown hand, and grasped the older girl's paler fingers.

"Please don't be insulted. Maya is shy with strangers," said a soft female voice with the trace of a lilting accent. He turned his head to find another set of all-black eyes, this time in a lovely adult face framed by ebony ringlets. The woman smiled at him politely, but looked tired and sad.

"Marella of the Sixth House, _Saber's_ medical officer," she said, extending her right hand in human fashion. He grasped it reflexively.

"Paul Mayweather. I'm the captain of the _Horizon_," he replied warmly. "Welcome aboard." Her unusual eyes intrigued him, and he held on a bit longer than was entirely appropriate while he studied them. Her brow went up in surprise, and her smile became genuine.

"Charm is a family trait, I see," she murmured in an amused voice.

He eyed her hesitantly, and then turned toward his mother, who was holding the baby tightly in her arms and rocking her from side to side while she wailed, reaching for a second young woman who lay unresponsive on a stretcher behind them.

"My sister Arabella. She and the girls were passengers. She should wake up any time now. I gave her a sedative about six hours ago. Her spouse, the captain, was killed when the ship was destroyed," explained Marella sadly.

Paul grimaced sympathetically. The sleeping woman was little more than a girl.

"Is this everyone that survived?" he asked softly.

"Did you pick up any other escape pod signals?" asked Marella. "The _Saber_ had a crew complement of six in addition to myself, my sister, and the girls."

Paul shook his head regretfully. "Yours was the only signal. Everything else is debris," he replied. She nodded in comprehension, dry-eyed. He found himself admiring her composure.

"The diplomatic registry indicates that your destination was Earth," Paul told her. "As the only surviving crew member, it's your decision whether to continue to your destination or to request transport back to Betazed, but I'm afraid you'll have to go with us to Jupiter Station either way. I've got a high priority passenger and I can't delay our return to bring you to another system," he continued apologetically.

"Maya?" said Arabella sleepily. The baby squealed, Arabella grunted, and the two looked up to find the young woman sitting up in bed with a much happier toddler wrapped snugly around her, squeezing the wind out of her mother. Their contrasting complexions surprised him. The child seemed familiar to him, but she looked nothing like Arabella.

"Arabella is Maya's mother, then?" he asked curiously.

Rianna, who was busy checking both mother and daughter with a medical scanner, glanced at her son almost guiltily. "Let's not bother them with too many questions, Paul. I'm sure they're tired after all they've been through. Why don't you show Marella and young Lianna to their cabin?" she suggested, indicating the little girl, who blinked solemnly up at Paul. She still hadn't said a word.

Paul stared quizzically at his mother for a moment, and then decided that she was probably right. Questions could wait until later. They had nearly a week before their scheduled arrival at Jupiter Station. He smiled charmingly at Lianna.

"Hello, Lianna. Want to see where you're going to stay?" he asked. The little girl looked him up and down for several seconds before speaking for the first time in his presence.

"You don't look much like Uncle Travis," she said nonchalantly. "He's much prettier."

Paul Mayweather blinked, staring at the child in puzzlement. "Uncle Travis...?"

#######################xx

The ancient grey-haired Vulcan was gaunt and weak, but his bearing remained regal. He sat, as was his wont each evening, propped by pillows in a chair by the side of his bed with a reader in his lap, purportedly studying the Kirshara. Moments before, he'd been snoring.

"You may leave now, Nurse. I am capable of preparing for bed without assistance," he announced. T'Len eyed him dubiously. The higher ambient oxygen concentration and lower gravity of the human courier vessel _Horizon_ had produced a surprising improvement in her charge's stamina, but he hadn't been able to change into his nightclothes without assistance for weeks, being unable to stand without support.

"Minister Kuvak," she protested mildly, "I am responsible for your safety. Is it logical to risk a fall and broken bones less than a week before arriving at our destination?"

Kuvak lifted a brow at her and then deliberately set his reader on the side table. He gripped the arms of his chair, and to her well-concealed astonishment pushed himself slowly upright—with obvious effort, to be sure, but still upright—and in a moment stood completely without support.

"I am stronger today," he said matter-of-factly.

She felt a twinge of illogical sadness. Death was a normal biological process. Vulcan philosophy discouraged grieving over the end of a productive life well-lived. The man before her was old and had accomplished much, but he was far from ready to die. It seemed unjust that his illness would take him so soon. He was still mentally alert and had so much to contribute. She forced herself to stay where she was as he shakily stepped toward the bed and reached out to catch himself. Once he had a good grip, she went to the closet and got out his night robes. She laid them on the bed beside him.

"Your night clothes are ready, Minister," she replied respectfully. She nodded at the medical alert pendant around his neck. "Please call if you require assistance."

Kuvak's eyes sparkled as he nodded in return, but he didn't thank her. It never occurred to either of them that the situation required it.

As the door closed behind her and she stepped into the corridor, the human captain approached her. Following him were a small child and a young woman, apparent refugees from the detour the captain had chosen to despite direct orders from both the Vulcan High Council and Starfleet Command to proceed to Earth without delay, according to Minister Kuvak. The minister had been surprisingly supportive of the captain's decision despite this, and had murmured something about the "needs of the many" after she'd told him of it and before closing his eyes for an afternoon rest. The captain smiled thinly as he approached. T'Len acknowledged him with a grave nod.

"Captain Mayweather," she said.

"Good evening, T'Len. How is Minister Kuvak tonight? Is his cabin temperature acceptable?" inquired Mayweather politely. T'Len raised a brow in mild surprise. The captain had been studiously avoiding her for the past 72.45 hours, and now he was solicitous of the minister's comfort? Her eyes cut to the woman and child standing in the hallway. Their expressions of respectful interest solved the mystery. Human males weren't so unlike Vulcan males, after all. The need to impress females transcended species boundaries, it seemed.

"The minister is much improved and quite comfortable. It is...kind...of you to ask," she attempted in response. Human social niceties were not her strong suit. Mayweather's smile broadened, and the woman who accompanied him stepped forward with an inquiring look. The child hung back, staring at T'Len with an unfathomable expression and pupil-less black eyes. Mayweather indicated the woman beside him as he began introductions.

"T'Len, may I introduce Chief Medical Officer Marella of the Sixth House and her niece Lianna," he said. The woman smiled and nodded but didn't offer to shake hands. T'Len was relieved.

"Marella... Lianna," continued Mayweather,"This is T'Len of Vulcan, nurse to Minister Kuvak, one of our passengers." T'Len returned her nod, encompassing the child in her greeting. If she'd learned anything in her years as a caregiver it was the value of treating children with courtesy. Too many adults simply ignored them. Ignoring a child resulted in unruly behavior as the child attempted to gain attention for his or her actions.

As she solemnly greeted the little girl, she felt an odd tingle between the eyes, deep in the center of her head. The female medical officer turned and gave the child a reproving look through identically featureless midnight eyes. She looked as if she were communicating silently with the little girl. T'Len finally made the connection.

_Betazoid telepaths_, she thought uncomfortably. She'd heard of the species and that they were dangerous. The curly-headed moppet certainly didn't look that way, though, with that shamefaced "caught in the act" expression. Although there was no physical resemblance, the penitence on her face reminded T'Len of the first child she'd had in her charge in the years after her own children were born. Was it sixty years ago or more? T'Pol had been such an impulsive child. There had been uncountable opportunities for her to wear such an expression, but it had never lasted very long. She'd been a challenge, but their time together had never been dull.

"Lianna, you know better than to try to read someone without their permission!" chided Marella. "Apologize this instant!"

Instead, the little girl's face transformed itself into a very convincing imitation of Vulcan solemnity, and she raised her right hand in a flawless _ta'al_. "Peace... and long life, T'Len of Vulcan."

T'Len was a bit taken aback by the child's unnatural maturity, but she hid her discomfort. She returned the gesture. "Live long and prosper, Lianna of Betazed," she replied. "And may your family prosper as well," she added, the typical addition to the greeting when made by an adult to a child.

The little girl's Vulcan façade cracked a little as her chin came up. Her eyes shone with tears, but she didn't cry. She sniffed once.

"My Aunt Lana's dead just like mama and papa... and my Aunt Arabella just cries and cries," she confided sadly, with disarmingly childish candor.

T'Len blinked, and then blinked again. How could there be something in her eye in the enclosed environment of a spacegoing vessel? She took a deep breath and then went to one knee so that she was eye-to-eye with the little girl. It was an unfortunate truism that war was always hardest on the children. The conventional response seemed inadequate, but she made it nonetheless.

"I grieve with thee, Lianna."

The little girl gave her a wistful smile, and then leaned over to whisper in T'Len's ear. "You're just like my T'Pol and my gramma all put together," she murmured, almost inaudibly to any but Vulcan ears. "I'll tell T'Pol you miss her when I see her again." Then her smile brightened and she stepped back to take her aunt's hand. Marella stood looking down at her for a moment with puzzlement clearly written on her face as T'Len struggled to contain her own surprise.

"It looks like I've got a budding diplomat on my hands," said Marella, sounding both amused and surprised by her niece's knowledge of Vulcan protocol—and fortunately oblivious to the rest of the child's surprising knowledge.

"Indeed," agreed T'Len dryly as she stood up again, eyeing the little girl warily.

Captain Mayweather cleared his throat. "If you ladies are done, I'm sure Lianna here is a very tired little girl," he said in a patronizing tone. Lianna shot him an annoyed look, quickly suppressed. T'Len, inwardly amused, watched the trio as they continued down the hall. Perhaps she would look for a childcare opportunity when her current assignment was complete. Children did tend to keep one alert.

She turned toward her cabin, and was left to ponder the captain's next question, easily heard by Vulcan ears from several meters down the corridor and around the corner. "So...Lianna...how did you meet my brother Travis...and why do you call him 'uncle'?"

Was the child acquainted with _every_ intelligent being in known space?

########################

For a moment, when Liz showed up in Sickbay in the middle of her sleep cycle and pulled him into the isolation chamber after deactivating all of the monitors, Phlox had the fleeting notion that she intended to resume their physical relationship. The prospect alarmed him, as she had been the one to end things. He'd agreed wholeheartedly once he'd realized how much she was hurt by the idea of being forced to share him. Despite her best efforts, she'd never become comfortable with the facts of Denobulan family life. He felt great affection for her, and would never deliberately do anything to harm her, so he was relieved at the first words to come out of her mouth once they were securely locked in.

"Starfleet knows about your research," she said reprovingly. He looked back at her, nonplussed.

"I made no attempt to hide it. I just didn't ask permission first," he replied nonchalantly.

"Phlox, honey!" she protested. "We could get arrested for treason! Starfleet Intelligence just sent me a document that proves that you had direct orders to put that thing in storage and leave it there unless you were authorized to use it. Why didn't you tell me?"

He grinned jauntily, shrugging. "I didn't want to get you into trouble. If you didn't know we weren't supposed to use it, then you weren't responsible," he told her lightly, with a fond expression. "Besides...it'll be easier just to ask forgiveness after the fact, especially once they see my results," he bragged. Liz sighed heavily and gave him an exasperated look.

"Starfleet Intelligence thinks you're planning to sell your results to the highest bidder," she told him. "They've recruited me to spy on you and to send them your data."

Phlox stared at her in dismay. After so many years of service to Starfleet Medical, did they still mistrust him? Was it because he was non-human?

"My intent was never espionage!" he protested. "I've almost completed my report to Starfleet Medical!"

Liz smiled with satisfaction, nodding. "I thought they were imagining things," she replied in a relieved voice. Then she paused, chewing on the inside of her cheek as she contemplated the problem. After a moment, Phlox realized her dilemma. She'd been assigned to obtain information from him in a clandestine fashion, and had probably been warned not to reveal herself to him. They had to get his research findings to Starfleet Intelligence in a way which made it appear that she was doing what she'd been told but didn't give anyone reason to believe that Phlox planned treason—or that he'd even been told of her interest in his highly irregular research. An idea suddenly occurred to him, and his smiled broadened.

"I've got it!" he told her brightly. "Here's what we'll do. You'll send them your version, and I'll send them mine. Come and have a look..."

#######################

Ensign Phillip Norfleet, publicly of Starfleet Security but currently acting in his capacity as an agent of Section 31, sat back on his haunches against the back wall of the holding cell and stared morosely at Petty Officer Michael Nikolai "Nick" Rostov. The man sat on the bunk against the opposite wall drooling on himself. The creative tinkering Norfleet had done with the cell monitors would only last another seventeen minutes, and he had yet to get any useful information from the psychotic engineer. The Section was counting on his ability to glean enough details about the man's contacts to follow through with their plans for infiltration of Terra Prime, but not even the drugs from his interrogation kit had made a dent in the wacko's solid wall of complete incomprehensibility. There was no way he would be able to pass himself off as Rostov if he couldn't even get a coherent sentence out of him. His ears perked up as the traitor began to speak.

"Bitch fried my brains," slurred Rostov indistinctly. His head lolled as he sat half slumped over on the bunk's thin mattress.

_Finally, something understandable!_

"A woman, Nick? Did she do something to you?" asked Norfleet urgently. "Where did you meet her? Was she on Earth or on_ Enterprise_?"

"On_ Enterprise_? Where?" repeated Rostov in a sudden panic. He was instantly awake and on guard, scrambling into the corner of the bunk to cower in a fetal position, shaking and gazing in abject terror over the tops of his knees at nothing in particular.

_Well, now...that's an interesting response_, thought Norfleet ironically.

And then an idea occurred to him. He hesitated for a second. It was cruel and inhuman, but then, so was the man in front of him—and Norfleet certainly hadn't advanced this far within the ranks of Section 31 by being merciful. So he decided to use the ammunition that fate had provided.

"Yes, Nick...she's here, right outside the cell...waiting..." he whispered ominously. Rostov's eyes roamed wildly and he began to whimper. A sudden smell in the air made Norfleet wrinkle his nose. The guy had pissed himself!

"I can protect you, though," Norfleet added hastily, afraid that Rostov's utter panic might trigger a seizure or something worse. "Just tell me everything you know about Terra Prime, and I'll never let her touch you again," he promised soothingly.

It was a very fruitful seventeen minutes.

########################

Commander Trip Tucker strolled into Sickbay that morning thirty minutes before the beginning of alpha shift with four steaming hot mugs of sweetened tea, two in his right fist and two in his left, and a self-satisfied expression on his face. It had been a week since he'd stopped his neuromodulator and, despite missing T'Mir, he felt just fine.

_Maybe it's the fact that she's grown and I know she's doin' what she wants to do with her life that makes this so much easier than the first time I had to let go of her_, he mused. He was, at least in his own estimation, doing better than T'Pol when it came to letting go of their pseudo-offspring. The flashes of grief he kept getting from his wife through their bond would occasionally make him wince. She, of course, denied experiencing anything of the sort.

He glanced over to the side of Sickbay now curtained off and popularly known as "Archer territory". Twin wails issued from behind the curtain, and he could hear both Jon and Elena's voices as they attempted to silence them. He grinned wryly. There was something to be said for skipping the infant stage altogether and gaining a full-grown member of the family, he decided.

He approached the uniform clad gathering at Lieutenant Sato's bedside and handed out mugs with an affable smile. T'Pol accepted hers with a small nod of thanks. Hoshi, who was sitting up in bed looking a little pale but otherwise seemed fine, smiled shyly and murmured her gratitude as she took the steaming cup. Malcolm looked a bit taken aback over being served by his acting XO.

"Decided to become a steward in your spare time, sir?" he teased, blowing over his mug before taking a tentative sip. Trip shrugged and grinned over his own cup.

"The acting captain ordered tea. I figured it would be impolite not to bring enough for everybody," he said casually. No one in the group commented on the fact that Commander T'Pol had voiced no such order.

T'Pol raised a brow and sipped. Hoshi hid her grin in her mug. Malcolm rolled his eyes, and Trip ignored him. He was feeling too good today to let teasing over being "whipped" bother him in the least. He did things for T'Pol because he wanted to. The others were just jealous.

"You were saying, Lieutenant Commander?" prompted T'Pol. Trip drank his tea and gazed at Malcolm with interest. It looked like he'd interrupted something with his impromptu morning beverage service. Malcolm cleared his throat. His eyes cut to Trip before he began to speak, obviously continuing an attempt at persuading his commanding officer. T'Pol looked unimpressed.

"As _Enterprise's_ Chief of Security, I believe that I have a better grasp of the extent of the security risk, if any, posed by Lieutenant Sato's return to active duty than some bean counter sitting behind a desk at Starfleet headquarters, Commander," insisted Malcolm. "I want it on record that I think Starfleet Command is grossly overreacting when they recommend that Hoshi be confined until after she's been debriefed and cleared by security personnel on Earth. If Romulans have in fact entered Human space, she's our best chance of discovering what they want and how to stop them. She should be on the bridge, not confined to quarters."

"Lieutenant Commander, my original orders were to confine her to the brig," countered T'Pol patiently. "I managed to convince Admiral Gardner that your security precautions are quite adequate, and that her quarters would serve. Only thirty minutes ago I received confirmation of a Romulan attack on a Betazoid diplomatic courier on the outskirts of Vulcan territory...as Admiral Gardner put it, 'right in Earth's back yard'." She paused, gazing at him sternly. "Answer this question... were the lieutenant someone with whom you did not have an intimate relationship, would you be so willing to trust her unconditionally after the length of time she's spent mentally joined with a Romulan artifact?"

Malcolm looked like a huge offended catfish as he stammered, attempting to come up with a civil response to her question. Trip just bit his tongue and winced, waiting for the explosion he knew was coming. The question was a low blow. He wondered whether T'Pol understood how insulted Malcolm was going to be by her implication of unprofessional favoritism on his part. Fortunately, before Malcolm was able to come up with a reply that would have probably landed him in the brig for insubordination, Hoshi came to his rescue. She cleared her throat. Her voice was a bit hoarse.

"Ummm... Commander? Can I assume by the fact that you're having this discussion in front of me that I can say something?" she asked hesitantly. Malcolm opened his mouth, but T'Pol raised a hand abruptly. Trip winced again, smiling ruefully, and stepped back a little. T'Pol was finally getting into this command business, a little too enthusiastically, to his way of thinking. He didn't want to be in the way if Malcolm decided he'd had enough. To the security officer's credit, though, he seemed to be holding it together. He stood stiffly at attention with his features carefully blank. Military training was a wonderful thing. Insulted or not, Malcolm was still a professional soldier in the presence of his commanding officer.

"Yes, Lieutenant. Of course you may speak," conceded T'Pol.

"Although I appreciate the Lieutenant Commander's confidence in me...," began Hoshi with an apologetic glance at Malcolm, "... and I know a little bit about what's happened to my brain since I was linked with the Romulan shuttle, I'm not sure yet about what it all means. Doctor Phlox said he'd explain when I was ready," she admitted. She looked from Malcolm's protesting expression to Trip's sympathetic smile, and finally returned T'Pol's solemn gaze with a hesitant half-smile. "Maybe we should ask Doctor Phlox what he thinks?" she suggested diffidently.

As if her words prompted his appearance from thin air, Phlox rounded the corner from his lab, whistling cheerfully. He stopped in his tracks with all eyes fixed on him.

"May I help you?" he asked hesitantly, looking from one intense face to the other in puzzlement.

"We're discussing Lieutenant Sato's return to duty, Doctor," explained T'Pol delicately. "Do you have any advice regarding the best action to maintain both her safety and the safety of the crew?" she asked—very diplomatically, Trip thought.

Phlox's eyes widened. "Ah..." he said with an uncomfortable grimace, "...I see..." He paused for a moment, hesitating.

"It's all right, Doctor. You can tell them. As my friends, they should know before Starfleet does... and you said yourself that it might not even make that much of a difference," prompted Hoshi with a weak smile.

Phlox returned her smile sympathetically and nodded. "Very well, Lieutenant," he replied. He exhaled heavily, and then stepped to his work console to bring up what looked to Trip like scans of the brain. Trip exchanged a worried look with Malcolm, who seemed equally clueless.

"This is a neurochemical scan of the lieutenant's brain activity prior to her encounter with the Romulan shuttle," Phlox began. He gestured at the more colorful areas. "Aside from increased metabolic activity in both the language center and the limbic areas, which control human telepathic activity, this is normal human brain activity."

_Guess I'll take his word for it_, thought Trip wryly. Malcolm looked impatient. T'Pol inspected the image as if she understood what she was looking at, but Trip could see that she was curious despite the shields that hid her emotions from him. Phlox pulled up a second scan.

"Here's an image from yesterday," he continued. It was a little less colorful than the first. "You'll notice that the language center remains quite active, but the activity in the limbic centers has decreased by half. In fact, after testing yesterday, Lieutenant Sato's telepathic ability rates in the low normal human range. That is to say, for all intents and purposes, it is zero. Linkage with the Romulan device seems to have damaged the telepathic centers of her brain. The damage is likely to be permanent, as it involves the death of brain cells, which do not regenerate in adult humans," he finished flatly.

"And what does this have to do with allowing her to return to duty, Doctor? Lieutenant Sato has never functioned as a telepath in her role as Communications Officer," said T'Pol, puzzled.

"I must disagree, Commander," replied Phlox in a conciliatory tone. "It's likely that at least a portion of the lieutenant's gift with real-time translation is a result of her unconscious use of telepathic skill. It is probable, however, that her intelligence and training will compensate well enough for her to do an excellent, if perhaps no longer miraculous, job...and as a non-telepath she is no longer a security risk to this ship should another telepath attempt to contact and control her as has occurred in the past. I know that the possibility of another such incident must weigh heavily on the minds of those in Starfleet Intelligence who spend their careers worrying about such things."

T'Pol raised a brow. Trip could feel intense relief leaking past her barriers as the import of the doctor's words registered. Malcolm smiled at Hoshi. She returned his smile a little wistfully. Malcolm turned his attention to Phlox.

"So, you'll report this to Starfleet Command, then?" Malcolm's statement sounded more like an order than a request.

"The report is already on its way," replied Phlox in a self-satisfied tone. "Once Lieutenant Sato is well enough for duty, it is my opinion that she should be allowed to return to her station. Her linkage to the Romulan device has not resulted in an increased risk to this ship. Quite the contrary, as a matter of fact." He stepped forward to the bed and lifted his bioscanner, gently shouldering the group aside. "Now, if this matter is settled could I please ask you to take this meeting elsewhere? Lieutenant Sato needs her rest," he said with his attention wholly focused on the scanner.

T'Pol stared at the back of Phlox's head with a startled expression, and then turned to leave without comment, placing her tea mug neatly on the breakfast service cart on her way out the door. Malcolm followed suit. Trip chuckled and did the same, shaking his head. No one argued with Phlox in his domain. Not even the acting captain.

#######################

Arabella opened her eyes and turned her head, expecting to find Lana sleeping in the bed beside her. Instead, Maya's sweet drowsy face greeted her, and beyond her the protective railing of a Sickbay biobed. Then reality hit, and Arabella closed her eyes again with a whimper. A tiny sticky hand patted her cheek, and then a pair of small warm arms encircled her neck. She wrapped her own arms around the snuggly, squirmy bundle plastered to her chest, buried her face in the short springy cushion of hair atop Maya's head and sniffed back the tears.

"Po' Mama," voiced Maya sadly. Arabella blinked and pulled back to stare at her daughter in surprise. At 15 months, Maya had a necessarily limited vocabulary. This was an actual sentence—one she hadn't heard before.

"Did you say 'Poor Mama'?" she asked in disbelief. Maya patted her cheek again with one small, dark hand, staring at her seriously with deep brown pupil-less eyes.

"It awwite, Mama," she said reassuringly in her infantile lisp. "Don' cwy."

Arabella began to laugh through her tears. Evidently, association with her preternaturally precocious cousin was starting to rub off on the child. Maya smiled back, giggling.

"Well, good morning! I'm glad the two of you are feeling better." A warmly maternal voice sounded from across the room. Arabella turned to find a smiling middle-aged woman with dusky skin, short salt and pepper hair, and a still slim and muscular figure. She looked very familiar. Arabella's puzzlement must have been obvious, because the woman immediately introduced herself, extending a hand in human fashion.

"Rianna Mayweather... engineer, medic, and part time momma to the entire crew of the _Horizon_. We found your escape pod. It's a small universe, isn't it?" she offered with a grin. Arabella gripped her hand, searching her face. Surely the name wasn't a coincidence. The surface thoughts she picked up from the woman confirmed her suspicions.

"You're Travis' mother...?" she ventured, amazed.

"Sure am!" Rianna confirmed cheerfully. Then she paused, waiting expectantly. To Arabella's surprise, she sensed nothing but acceptance and welcome from the woman. Had Travis not told her of their arrangement?

"Arabella of the Sixth House...," she began. Eyeing Rianna cautiously, she said, "My spouse Lana is... was... the captain of _The Saber of Betazed_." She winced inwardly at the admission of Lana's death. It still seemed unreal. Rianna grimaced sympathetically.

"I know... I'm so sorry for your loss," replied the human sincerely. Her eyes fell on Maya, who was still tucked under Arabella's chin. "She'll need lots of reassurance. Little ones always do when they lose a parent. Maybe I can help," she offered hopefully.

Arabella blinked, taken aback by the offer. She half-smiled, hesitantly. "I suppose Travis told you, then, about how he helped us."

Rianna chuckled, holding out her hands. Maya, to Arabella's surprise, detached readily from around her neck and went to the older woman of her own accord. "I think it's pretty obvious he had something to do with this one," said Rianna fondly, lifting the baby into her arms and studying her features. Maya reached up and stroked the human woman's short clipped cushion of hair as if she recognized its similarity to her own. Arabella felt a twinge of jealousy, but she sensed no threat from the human, only joy at finally being with her granddaughter.

Perhaps that was why Maya had gone to her so easily. She recognized that she and the human belonged together. Not for the first time, Arabella wondered how growing up on a planet where she was physically different in appearance and perhaps even deficient in ability from everyone she knew would affect her daughter. There were times when her own mother's admonishments to "think before you act" came back to haunt her.

"Can you say 'Momma Ri'?" whispered Rianna to the child in her arms. Arabella smiled wistfully. She'd never known her own grandmothers, who had died before she was born.

Maya grinned, grabbed a handful of the short springy grey-sprinkled hair with which she'd recently become so fascinated, and pulled.

#######################

Commander T'Pol of Vulcan proceeded down the corridor to the turbolift with her security officer on her heels. Trip followed them. She kept her shields up, as was her usual habit whenever possible while in command, and maintained her composure despite the obvious anger radiating from the man at her side. As she stood waiting for the lift to the bridge, however, her eyes cut to Lieutenant Commander Reed's rigid expression. He still said nothing. She glanced past him toward her bondmate, who was gazing at her with a fondly exasperated look on his face. Curious about the source of his emotional response, she dropped her shields. His thoughts surprised her.

"_You do not approve of the way I spoke to Mr. Reed,"_ she sent, puzzled.

Trip smiled minutely, and raised a brow in unconscious imitation of his wife. _"You were kinda hard on him, darlin'."_

The lift arrived. The three of them stepped in.

"Engineering," said Trip.

"Bridge," said T'Pol.

Malcolm said nothing.

"_I was merely pointing out the flaws in his thought processes,"_ she retorted silently. _"It is illogical to assume that he would capable of complete objectivity where his mate is concerned."_

Trip rolled his eyes. The doors opened to the Engineering level. _"Just because you couldn't do it doesn't mean he can't, T'Pol_," he sent. Then he stepped out, giving both of them a mocking wave.

The doors shut, leaving T'Pol alone in the turbolift with Malcolm. She eyed him warily. He never even looked at her. She exhaled heavily, staring at the doors. It was going to be a very long day.

#######################

Hoshi Sato stepped into her cabin for the first time in nearly a month. The room was considerably neater than when she'd left, thanks to—according to Malcolm—a thorough going over by the security detail that had been charged with looking for clues related to her disappearance and the subsequent clean-up he'd ordered after they'd literally trashed her cabin. It felt strange to enter the room, almost as if she'd been gone years instead of weeks.

_It might as well have been years,_ she mused bitterly. _I'm not the same person as I was the last time I was in here._

Even though she hadn't even been aware of her telepathic talent until the temporal agent Isis had begun to instruct her, its loss was affecting her much more profoundly than she would have expected. On the one hand, she felt relief over the fact that she was no longer any more vulnerable to telepathic influence than any other human aboard _Enterprise_. On the other, she feared what the lack of telepathic talent would do to her linguistic abilities. Her gift with languages was her only asset—the only thing that set her apart from the ordinary. It defined her as a person, and had since she was a child. If her ability to translate depended on telepathic skill, then she was no longer capable of doing her job. Even worse, she was no longer herself. The possibility terrified her.

Taking a shaky breath, she took a seat at the desk and activated her computer console. The doctor had released her from Sickbay earlier than he'd initially planned so she could take this incoming subspace call in privacy. There was no point in wasting the subspace window woolgathering about scary possibilities. She opened the video comm channel. McNamara's freckled face appeared with the bridge's science station in the background behind him.

"All right, Ensign. Put him through," she said with a sigh.

The view shifted. A frail looking grey-haired Japanese man dressed in a traditional plain white kimono appeared. Behind him, paper screens painted with stylized cranes and stalks of bamboo provided a backdrop. In the silence she could hear the rush of water from an unseen fountain. The man smiled broadly.

"Hoshi-chan!" he said enthusiastically. His voice brought back memories of her childhood.

"Hello, Jijii. You're looking well," she replied, smiling fondly. He seemed much healthier than when she'd left after her last visit. Of course, he'd had nearly two years to recover from her grandmother's death. They'd been married over sixty years. The shock had nearly killed him.

"Papa says you've moved into the Shintobuddist monastery. Are you happy as a priest?" she asked curiously. The news had amused her, but she hadn't been surprised. Her grandfather had always seemed to glide through life, half in the real world and half somewhere else—the proverbial absent-minded professor, even when he'd been chairman of the Department of Eastern Philosophy at the university. The priesthood had been an understandable next step. At least he had others around him to remind him to eat and wash now that his wife wasn't there to do it.

"I am very content," replied the old man complacently, "...or at least I will be once you come to visit me." With just a hint of mischief in his eyes he said, "You must bring your young man so that I may bless your union, and then you should leave this war to the warriors and begin the process of making my great-grandchildren as soon as possible. Your father tells me that he believes things are serious between the two of you, since all you ever speak about in your calls is the brave Lieutenant Commander and his noble devotion to duty," he continued teasingly.

"Jijii!" protested Hoshi laughingly, "I do not! I tell Papa plenty of other things!" She stopped laughing then, and told him seriously, "And you mustn't call him 'my young man'. Starfleet has strict regulations about such things. You could get us both in a lot of trouble."

The old man nodded wisely. "I see," he replied slowly. He pursed his lips, obviously concocting something. "Well, I would still enjoy meeting him," he said innocently. Hoshi laughed, shaking her head at her grandfather's transparent matchmaking.

"Don't worry, Jijii. We're both coming. Papa already told me that he wants to meet Malcolm, too." She gave her grandfather a pleading look. "Just try not to embarrass me, okay?" she begged.

The old priest gazed back at her with mock effrontery. "Now why would I ever do that?" he asked. He paused, evidently for dramatic effect. "By the way...how much Japanese does the heroic Mr. Reed understand?"

Hoshi gave him a puzzled look. "Just a few words...Why?" she asked hesitantly, waiting for the punch line.

"Oh...no particular reason," he replied airily. "I was just wondering if I could get away with a Shinto fertility ritual or two, just in case."

"Jijiiii!"

########################

Fifteen minutes after the end of his duty shift, Lieutenant Commander Malcolm Reed was in the gym having an up close and personal confrontation with a punching bag that, in his mind's eye, sported a pair of pointed ears and a smugly superior attitude. His pace was a steady "jab...punch, punch", and he'd been at it so far for ten minutes without a break. He found the experience liberating.

Commander Tucker entered the gym and tossed a grin and a casual "Hi, Mal!" over one shoulder before stepping up on a treadmill. Malcolm ignored him. This wasn't something he felt comfortable discussing with his friend. There was no way for Trip to take either side. Talking about it with him would accomplish nothing. So he clenched his teeth and kept hitting the bloody bag.

Fifteen minutes later, he added roundhouse kicks to his repertoire. "Jab, roundhouse...punch, punch" became the new rhythm. He was dripping with sweat, his breathing harsh. Still, he continued without a pause, alternating sides for the kick. He heard Trip finish the cardio portion of his workout and step off the treadmill. The rhythmic clink of weights soon followed.

"So, Mal... what did that poor punchin' bag ever do to you?"

Malcolm paused, his rhythm thrown off by his friend's joking question. Trip sat on the weight bench across the room doing one armed curls and grinning at him. Surprisingly, the gym was otherwise deserted.

Malcolm smiled back at him reluctantly, wiping his sweaty forehead with the hem of his soaked grey t-shirt. "It's an insufferably superior and hypocritical punching bag," he replied ironically, breathing hard. "I decided to take it down a peg."

Trip chuckled and switched the dumbbell to his other hand. "Yep. I've noticed that about punchin' bags. When they're new they're kinda stiff. Takes some time for 'em to get seasoned before they'll give ya a good workout without hurtin' ya some," he replied half-jokingly. Then his face sobered. "Doesn't mean they aren't good equipment, though," he said sincerely. "Ya gotta give 'em a chance to get pounded inta shape first."

"This one's been here for some time. I would have expected it to be well-seasoned by now," Malcolm countered disapprovingly. Trip nodded, smiling wryly.

"I see your point." He shrugged. "I guess some need longer than others ta get there. I suppose it depends on what they're like as...um...punchin' bags to begin with," he attempted, stretching the metaphor a little, Malcolm thought.

Dropping the discussion for a moment to lie back on the bench, Trip grasped the barbell in both hands. Malcolm walked across the room to spot him without being asked. They'd done this so many times by now that it was a reflex, like breathing.

"I suppose I could try giving this one a bit more time," Malcolm conceded as he stood at the head of the bench while Trip did his reps. There was silence for several seconds. Trip grunted as he pushed the barbell up for the final time and laid it to rest. He looked up at Malcolm and grinned, sticking his tongue in one cheek before taking their conversation to a previously unattained pinnacle of silliness.

"That's not ta say that a punchin' bag couldn't benefit from a little advice now and then," he said. Malcolm rolled his eyes and sighed.

"I'll keep that in mind, sir," he replied dryly. They switched places.

As Malcolm lay back on the bench and grasped the barbell, Trip changed the subject.

"So, are ya really gonna go to Japan with Hoshi to meet her dad?" he asked. Malcolm exhaled forcefully as he pushed the weight off of his chest.

"Her father and her grandfather, the Shintobuddist priest," clarified Malcolm in a slightly strained voice. He lowered the barbell as Trip let out a low whistle.

"Boy, Mal...when you decide ta meet the family you don't mess around, do ya?" he marveled.

Malcolm smiled weakly as he did another rep, but said nothing.

"So, I guess this means things are gettin' pretty serious between you and Hoshi," Trip probed.

The silence was deafening. Malcolm pushed the barbell up and down two more times before he spoke.

"I was going to...you know...pop the question," replied Malcolm with a grimace. "But that was...unh...when she was considering joining the Intelligence...unh...Department on Earth." He pushed the weights up for the final time and brought them to rest. He looked up to find Trip staring at him.

"She's gonna leave the _Enterprise_?" he asked, dumbfounded. Malcolm sat up.

"Well...yes," he admitted. "That was the general idea." He shrugged. "If we plan to marry, at least one of us would have to. She felt that I had more to offer a combat vessel, and so she volunteered to be the one to leave...but I'm not sure what will happen now." He sighed, resting both elbows on his knees and looking down at his hands. His fingers laced themselves together and twisted, almost of their own accord. "She's not sure now if Starfleet Intelligence will have her," he said softly. "She may not be able to transfer back to Earth if she can no longer translate effectively, and I'd much rather have her here than on another combat vessel."

"Whaddya mean, 'if she can't translate'?" Trip asked in a puzzled tone. Then his eyes widened in realization. "Oh...the telepathy thing..."

Malcolm nodded, smiling wryly. "Yes. 'The telepathy thing'," he confirmed.

A laughing group of junior crewmen entered the gym. The group was composed of four girls and one muscular young man with impossibly sun-streaked blonde hair and a winning smile. The girls gathered around him admiringly as he walked to a weight bench and settled himself. He joked and flirted with them all with impartial enthusiasm as he began a set of biceps curls with a well laden dumbbell. Malcolm had no idea who he was, but he was envious of the kid. Life was simple for boys like him.

Trip crossed his arms over his chest and stuck his tongue in one cheek, studying the newcomers with a thoughtful expression. Malcolm eyed him suspiciously. The engineer looked as if yet another wild idea was percolating.

"Know who that kid is, Mal?" Trip asked in a speculative tone. Malcolm stared at him quizzically.

"No," he answered bluntly, very puzzled by his friend's sudden complete change of subject.

Trip smiled slightly, still staring across the room. "His name is Tex Wormald. He's a junior crewman from Engineering. He loves to tell stories to the ladies. The other day, Janice Hess told me an interesting one."

Malcolm stared at him. What was he getting at?

"A hundred years ago, Wormald's great grandfather was instrumental in saving at least six species of South African antelope from extinction by feeding them during the nuclear winter that followed World War Three. He's a tenth generation South African, and in addition to English and some Afrikaans, his family and their neighbors, the descendents of a small indigenous African tribe, are the only living beings anywhere who speak an African language called... lemme see if I can get this right... Xhosa."

Malcolm blinked. "Gesuntheit," he replied jokingly. The name of the language was pronounced like a cross between a cough and a sneeze. Trip chuckled.

"Sounds sorta like Klingon, doesn't it?" he quipped. He grinned broadly, looking directly at Malcolm, and raised a brow. "I've checked before, just out of curiosity. Xhosa isn't one of the languages on Hoshi's two page list of claimed fluencies. We'll assign him to help her to prove she still has her skills and forbid him to speak anything but Xhosa in her presence. Wanna bet she'll be conversing with him like a native before we hit Jupiter Station in three days?"

"Let me clarify this plan, Commander," countered Malcolm in disbelief, pointing at the muscle bound fellow. "You want me to purposely allow _that_ bloke access to Hoshi?"

"Mal! He's a boy! Hoshi'll never go for him," Trip reassured him. "You've got nothing to worry about... and think of what it'll do for her self-confidence. She won't have any doubts about whether Starfleet Intelligence will take her, so she'll ask for the transfer and the two of you can get married."

Malcolm studied the young man doubtfully with a wrinkled brow, still puzzled.

"Why 'Tex'?" he asked finally. Trip shrugged, grinning.

"The girls tell me it's a family name. I think his great-great-grampa was obsessed with American westerns. Besides...I'm told that women really go for the cowboy type."

Malcolm sighed and rolled his eyes. "Bloody wonderful!" he said.

######################

"Harder," said T'Pol in a pained voice. "Push harder."

Trip sat on his heels straddling her upper thighs. He wore a blue t-shirt and a loose pair of grey sweatpants. She was lying face down on a row of meditation cushions laid out on the floor, clad only in the bottoms of her blue silk pajamas. He pushed with the heels of both hands into her bare back, bearing down with all of his weight.

"You're so wound up tonight I could probably jump up and down on ya and not make any headway with these knots," he complained. "Relax!"

"I am attempting to do so," she protested. He removed his hands from her back, rocked backwards on his heels, and threw himself forward, leading with the points of his elbows. "...but I would prefer if you would push harder...unh!" The impact of his elbows knocked the wind out of her for a second, and then she melted limply into the cushions with a blissful sigh. He collapsed on the floor next to her, breathing hard.

"Better?" he asked softly. He lifted a hand and brushed it lightly along the curve of her spine, marveling yet again about how something so fragile appearing could be so strong.

"Yes...," she whispered sleepily.

He began to knead the now relaxed muscles of her upper back with smooth, firm strokes. She sighed. He could sense very little from her except fatigue, she'd gotten so good at shielding her emotions from him.

"Rough day at the office, dear?" he murmured half-jokingly, trying to draw her out with humor as he rubbed. Her emotional isolation worried him, in part because of the grief he knew she'd been battling since T'Mir's departure, but also because he knew that she was still not entirely comfortable with being in command after the debacle at Azati Prime.

She was silent for several minutes, breathing deeply as his fingers probed for trigger points. Finally, she spoke.

"You believe that I was in error when I assumed that Mr. Reed would be incapable of objectivity regarding Lieutenant Sato," she said softly. It was a statement, not a question. Despite her shields, he heard the self-doubt in her voice.

He sighed. So that was it.

"Not necessarily," he replied as he continued down her back. "It makes sense for a captain to be worried about objectivity, especially considerin' what you know about the two of them. It's just..." Trip paused, trying to think of a diplomatic way to say what needed to be said, and sighed again. "You never seem to take emotions into account when you deal with people under your command," he said finally.

"I'm not certain that I understand you," she replied in a puzzled voice, rolling over to look at him. He grinned, enjoying the view, and then shook his head.

"It's like this... Mal knows his judgement's probably compromised. He probably even agrees with you. But you, his captain, basically called him an unprofessional idiot in front of his girlfriend and his actin' XO _and_ verbally confirmed a major violation of Starfleet regulations in front of witnesses."

She cocked her head at him, looking very confused.

"But everyone in the meeting was aware of the relationship and its possible ramifications," she said, sounding baffled by his statement. Trip exhaled in frustration.

"I know that! But knowin' about it and talkin' about it are two different things, especially comin' from you or from me, since we're basically in the same situation. It makes you sound like you think you're better than he is, and you end up soundin' like a hypocrite," he explained, wincing as he did so. There just wasn't any better way to put it.

"I am in command. It is my job to point out violations of Starfleet policy when they occur and to prevent them from interfering with the orderly operation of this vessel," she returned stiffly. He could tell that she was starting to get angry. Her shields were weakening. The increased respiratory rate made her bare chest heave very nicely, which made it difficult for him to concentrate, but he did his best.

"You're right," he conceded. "It's your job...but couldn't you have just as easily discussed it with him in private?"

She contemplated his question in silence. One brow went up.

"I could have," she agreed reluctantly. "Unfortunately, it never even occurred to me to do so."

Trip gazed back at her sympathetically. "So...are you gonna let me help now, or not?"

She gave him an uncomprehending look. He grinned wryly.

"I'm well now. The doc says so," he said, "...so droppin' your shields won't hurt me. I'm also your best information source for human social interaction." He spread his arms wide, his face suddenly earnestly serious. "I'm here for you, T'Pol. I'm supposed to be your second in command. Drop the damned shields and use me! I can give you advice. You can forget the fact that we're married while we're on duty if you want to. Just don't block me out anymore!"

T'Pol's brown eyes were wide and liquid as they searched his face. He gazed at her pleadingly, and suddenly felt something break through the barrier between them. T'Pol reached out and grasped his hands in hers, and the jumble of gratitude, fear, sorrow, and regret that she'd been hiding from him poured out. It nearly broke his heart.

Without a word, he picked up her pajama top from the floor and helped her put it on, his eyes never leaving hers as he buttoned it. He took her by the hand and led her to the bed, and she curled up within the circle of his arms. He held her, trying his best to help her with her efforts to master the maelstrom of emotions she'd set loose. Peace settled on both of them, an acceptance of their deep-seated need for one another, and the fatigue of a long day caught up with them. It wasn't long before they were both sound asleep.

########################

It was unusually quiet in the fire station. San Francisco Spaceport Rescue was a slow division these days, what with the limitations on private off world travel mandated by Starfleet Command. The only vessels coming in or going out were military, and their safety protocols were strictly by the book.

Joey Ponsello ran a hand over his bristle cut head, yawned, and stepped out the back door of the station. His sister Paula, similarly shorn and alike enough to make it obvious that they were twins, stood waiting for him with a duffle bag over one shoulder. She looked better rested than he felt. Of course, she'd been off duty the night before.

There was a brisk breeze blowing, and the beginning of an autumn coolness that September morning despite the sunshine.

"Did the captain see you leave?" asked Paula worriedly. Joey chuckled derisively, shaking his head.

"Milo's still in bed. He was up late last night taking a subspace call from his alien-loving girlfriend. She'll be in system in three days, and, according to the lovesick raving I was treated to last night, is about to drop his kid at any minute. He's not paying attention to anything now."

Paula exhaled in relief. "Good. I've got the stuff. Let's go."

They walked to the garage. It was deserted. The runway rescue response vehicle was prepped and ready to go, as always, filled with cylinders of fire-suppressive foam. With Paula's help, Joey pulled out two of the heavy cylinders to get to the bed of the truck. He opened one of the long storage bins, which were filled with blankets and first aid supplies, the sorts of things that were needed after the cylinders were depleted and more easily pushed aside. He pulled out one of the first aid kits, dumped the contents out onto the truck bed, and began replacing them with items from Paula's bag. The hypospray unit she handed him looked just like the standard pain relief hypospray included in every first aid kit, but it contained succinylcholine, a paralytic agent that worked even better on Vulcans than on humans. Once metabolized, it was virtually undetectable, and the victim would appear to have simply stopped breathing. It was fast acting, too. They'd only be near the Vulcan minister for a few minutes, so speed of onset was important.

"So... did they tell you why they want to off this guy?" he asked Paula. She grinned and shrugged.

"Does there have to be a reason to get rid of a Vulcan?" she returned lightly.

To Be Continued in Part 2.


	2. Chapter 2a

**Virtual Season Six**

**Finale : To Go Boldly- Part Two**

By Distracted

Rating: PG-13

Genre: Romance/Action adventure

Disclaimer: It's been fun, but none of this is mine and I never made a cent.

Summary: _Enterprise_ heads back to Earth to offload non-combatants and children. The war is escalating, and soon they'll be called into active combat as the flagship of the fleet. Can they make themselves ready for war in the short weeks they have left?

A/N: Well, this is it, ladies and gents... the end of the neverending story. It was a wild ride, and I hope you all had as much fun as I did.

During the course of writing this last installment, I did a bit of research about the traditional belief systems of the Japanese people. I discovered that the co-observance of both Shintoist and Buddist traditions is extremely common in modern Japan among those people who still choose to observe their traditional faith practices. For that reason, in this story I have hypothesized the official union of the two in Japan. I hope that this doesn't offend. It was my intent to show the resilience of the Japanese people in preserving their culture despite the changes that would inevitably occur after a third World War and reconstruction.

########################

Lieutenant Travis Mayweather walked with trepidation down the central corridor of the outermost ring of Jupiter Station, looking for apartment 167. It had been two days since his mother had contacted him on _Enterprise_ to tell him that she'd meet up with him at Jupiter Station—two days since she'd casually mentioned that the _Horizon_ had come across a stranded quartet of Betazoid refugees, and "My, isn't it a small universe, Travis! You'll never guess who we picked up!"

His mother's news about Lana had saddened him. Of his daughter's two mothers, she'd been the one who, in his opinion, was the more stable and rational. Arabella, on the other hand, was flighty, self-serving and shallow. She also loved their daughter without reservation. That fact gave him some small comfort while he contemplated the fearful prospect of his mother spending time in the girl's company. The deceptive Betazoid charmer had apparently had two weeks to work her devious magic on his mother and turn his behavior with her and her partner—the behavior that had resulted in Maya's conception—into something for which his mother would never forgive him.

The arrival of_ Enterprise_ at Jupiter Station had been a quiet event, unpublicized for reasons of security. The non-essential civilian inhabitants of the Station had all been evacuated at the first news of Romulan encroachment into human space, and so the reception committee had consisted of a contingent of Starfleet Intelligence officers assigned to debrief the crew before they were allowed to set foot in the quarters assigned to them on the station. Travis had gotten away easy; a mere four hours later and here he was, free to have lunch with his family. The rest of the bridge crew would likely be stuck on the ship for a while pending extensive debriefing interviews—especially Hoshi. He didn't envy her in the least, although the last time he'd seen her she'd seemed to be having a grand old time talking gibberish with that wanna-be beach boy crewman from Engineering she'd attached herself to for the last couple of days of their trip home. It was pretty strange. Travis had always thought that Hoshi and Lieutenant Commander Reed had a thing going. Guess not.

_Apartment 166...167_. His steps slowed a bit, and then he was there. He squared his shoulders, took a deep breath, and pressed the buzzer. He had time to wonder fleetingly whether Arabella's father Galen had kept his promise to show Maya the vids he'd sent, vids in which he'd made a total fool of himself gooing and gaaing for his infant daughter's entertainment. He'd been too embarrassed to send them directly to Lana and Arabella, but he'd told them he was sending them, at least. The fact that he'd never lied to the women who were bringing up his daughter was, according to Galen, the main reason why Galen had decided to champion his cause. Then the door opened.

His mother's smile was wide and delighted.

"Travis! Come in! We're about to sit down to eat." He could see the table from the doorway, loaded with food.

She didn't seem angry with him in the least as she embraced him. Across the room, his brother turned from his conversation with a familiar looking Betazoid woman and smiled his welcome as he walked toward them. Travis returned his mother's enthusiastic squeeze with a hesitant smile. His eyes searched the room over her shoulder.

"DA-DEE!"

The squeal came from under the table. A small whirlwind launched itself from beneath the tablecloth and came barreling across the room, finally materializing into a breathless toddler clinging with both arms to his leg. He laughed down into his daughter's grinning face as his mother stepped back, watching the two of them with eyes which were suspiciously moist. His brother watched as well, with a tolerant expression.

Travis bent down and hoisted Maya to his chest with both arms beneath her bottom, holding her eye-to-eye. "Hey, baby girl," he said wonderingly. Galen had kept his promise.

Maya giggled, then wrapped both arms around his neck and clung like a monkey. Over the top of her head Travis caught sight of Arabella on hands and knees coming out from under the table with Lianna at her side. Arabella almost looked like a child herself, her black curls tousled, barely as tall as his shoulder when standing upright. The dark circles beneath her eyes stood out in contrast to her porcelain skin, but in Travis' eyes she looked even more beautiful than the day he'd met her. When she stood and met his gaze from across the room, her sorrowful expression almost made him pity her—but he'd been fooled before.

"Hey, Travis. You've got some explaining to do, bro," said his brother half-jokingly as he pulled Travis into a one-armed hug designed to avoid crushing the child hanging from around his brother's neck.

"Yeah...I guess I do," replied Travis with a shamefaced grimace.

"The explanation is quite simple," piped Arabella from behind Paul. Both men turned to look at her expectantly. She'd discarded the sad expression Travis had seen a moment before, replacing it with an irresistibly flirtatious grin that Travis found painfully familiar. "He was the best candidate for the job," she said brightly.

Paul grinned back at her, obviously taken in by her act. Travis gave her a puzzled smile.

"Hello, Arabella," he said. She smiled back, a bit more subdued, and reached up to give him a kiss on the cheek. Maya detached from around Travis' neck and reached for her mother, so Travis transferred her without breaking eye contact with Arabella. Maya sat for a second in Arabella's arms, studying first one face and then the other with a serious expression, and then squirmed to get down. Arabella released her, maintaining eye contact with Travis the entire time, lowering Maya to the ground where she ran off happily to join Lianna back under the table. The rest of the room watched the interaction with interest.

"I'm sorry about Lana," he continued sympathetically, ignoring the kiss. It was just like Arabella to publicly display affection she didn't feel. She was undoubtedly up to something. His best guess was that she was trying really hard to make his family like her for some reason.

Arabella's smile suddenly looked more like a grimace. Her eyes filled. She cleared her throat. Despite his conditioned cynicism where she was concerned, learned the hard way after her deception had destroyed his trust completely, he pitied her.

"You okay?" he whispered, feeling the remnants of his original attraction to her emerge despite himself. Her tears spilled over, and she stepped forward, wrapping her arms around his waist and burying her face in his chest.

"She's dead, Travis... I'm all alone," she whimpered. Travis sighed and awkwardly patted her on the back. Looking over Arabella's head, he saw his mother smile approvingly. Travis' heart sank. So that was it. He smiled weakly back at his mother. He was really in trouble now.

########################

"I trust you've reviewed the mission parameters. Any problems?"

Harris' question was rhetorical, Phillip Norfleet was certain. He stood at attention before the vid screen.

"No, sir. None whatsoever, sir," he replied with stiff military correctness. Harris was—well, there was no being anywhere in known space with more power over him than Commodore Jeffrey Harris. His career—his very life, even—rested solely on this man's whim. He stared straight ahead, trying his level best to project do-or-die enthusiasm. To his surprise, Harris chuckled.

"Your fervor is appreciated, Ensign, but this is a strictly voluntary mission. At ease... and tell me if you're really prepared to do this," he said almost affably. At Norfleet's puzzled silence, his smile vanished. "Not that we really have another operative with your skills available to take your place... and, of course, you understand that the successful completion of this mission will ensure your advancement within Starfleet Intelligence..."

Norfleet relaxed marginally. Now this was the Harris he was accustomed to. "I understand, sir," he replied. His lips quirked upward. "As long as someone's available to make me pretty again when it's all over, sir," he quipped.

Harris chuckled again at that. "Our medical advisor assures me that the procedure is fully reversible, son," he replied in an amused tone of voice. "As for pretty, well... we don't claim to work miracles." His face sobered again. "Your support team is in place, and the necessary DNA records have been modified planetside. Once the exchange has taken place you'll be on your own until your scheduled pickup." He paused, eyeing Norfleet sternly. "I expect results. It's time to take them down."

Norfleet stiffened again to full attention. "Yes, sir. You can count on me, sir," he replied emphatically. The vidscreen went dark before he'd finished his sentence. He blinked.

So that was it. It was time.

Norfleet took a deep breath, and then left his cabin to keep his debriefing appointment.

#######################

Phlox surveyed his domain with a dissatisfied expression. Two unfamiliar security guards stood at attention flanking the biobed where Nick Rostov lay sedated and restrained in preparation for transfer. At least he'd convinced them to allow him to sedate the man himself with proper monitoring equipment instead of relying on a partially trained medic to dose the prisoner with something in the brig.

Another two guards flanked the medical transporter in his laboratory, waiting for the technicians from Starfleet Medical who were coming soon to dismantle and remove it for study. A third pair stood flanking the entrance to Sickbay, ostensibly preventing the entry of unauthorized personnel into what had now become the area of highest security risk on the ship. Poor Elena Archer and her twins looked out of place in the midst of all the firepower.

Phlox didn't like it one bit. Sickbay was no place for weapons. It was a place of healing, not of destruction. That was why he had to bite his tongue to prevent harsh words when yet another armed pair of close-clipped bulletheads in uniform stepped through the doors. Two white coat clad science types, one male and one female, followed them in. The woman, a dark haired athletically built human, stepped forward toward Phlox with a smile and an extended hand as her silent shadows stepped around him, heading directly for his laboratory. He eyed them warily, turning his head to follow them. The woman stood patiently, waiting for him to acknowledge her. When all the uniformed pair did was show ID to the men guarding the medical transporter and then pull tool kits from the hip pouches he'd assumed contained weapons, it finally occurred to him that they were the tech team. The woman cleared her throat, diverting his attention back to her.

"Dr. Phlox! I'm Doctor Wynona Wong with Starfleet Medical," she said with artificial brightness. "Is there a place we can talk privately?"

Phlox realized then that this woman was his assigned debriefing officer. He sighed. It was all in his reports. An in-person debriefing was a complete waste of everyone's time, but at least they'd sent someone capable of understanding the significance of his research. He smiled politely.

"I'm afraid I'm on duty, Doctor. My medic is being debriefed, and I can't leave Sickbay unattended," he said in his best attempt at an apologetic tone. He certainly didn't feel apologetic. He hated it when bureaucratic types made it impossible for him to do his job.

"We've got that covered, Doctor," she replied with a determinedly polite smile. "Dr. Louer, here, is fully certified in xenological medicine. He's a staff physician at the station's medical facility and is your assigned relief during our session." The thin, balding, quiet man beside her nodded briefly, gave Phlox a rather cold look in response to the Denobulan's momentary look of aggravation, and offered a padd which proved to contain bonafide orders requiring Phlox to yield control of Sickbay during his debriefing. Phlox bit his tongue again, and then nodded reluctantly, studying the padd.

"Very well," he replied brusquely. He pulled the stylus from the side of the padd and entered information for several seconds. Then he handed the padd back to his replacement. "You'll find everything under control at present, Doctor. As you're probably aware, the occupants of biobeds two and three and the two incubators are scheduled for transfer to the station's medical facility today. If any new problems come in, the access code I just gave you will enable you to pull up a schematic of the supplies and equipment available in the department. If you have any questions, you know where to find me." He smiled very briefly, almost imperceptibly for a Denobulan. Being evicted from his Sickbay mid-shift didn't sit well with him. Louer didn't seem to notice.

"Thank you, Doctor, but I don't anticipate any problems," replied the human, as expressionless as a Vulcan.

Phlox studied him for a moment. There was something familiar about the man, but he couldn't place it. Perhaps it was just the coldness in his eyes.

That was it. The "doctor" was also a soldier. He supposed it was to be expected at a military facility.

"Shall we go? We're on a tight schedule," prompted the woman expectantly. Phlox, distracted by his study of the man he was expected to trust with his patients, turned toward her and caught sight of Elena Archer over the female physician's shoulder, dressed and sitting in the chair near her bed rocking one of the twins. With a pang, he realized that if the trio were transferred in his absence he might not see them again for years. His chin came up with determination and he pushed past Doctor Wong, walking toward Elena and the babies. Some things were more important than a bureaucratic timetable.

"In a moment, Doctor. I have something to take care of first," he said over his shoulder, leaving the two of them standing flatfooted in the middle of the room. His smile broadened as he walked, but he resisted looking over his shoulder at the expressions on their faces.

########################

Commander T'Pol's interrogator was a bored looking middle-aged female of equivalent rank. She tapped a stylus rhythmically on the tabletop as she studied T'Pol's report.

"What do you know about these so-called temporal agents? Did they show you proof of their identities?" she asked absently with her eyes still fixed on the screen.

"They had no verifiable credentials, but based on our previous experiences with temporal agents we had no reason to doubt their claims of legitimacy," T'Pol replied patiently. She sighed inwardly. The two of them had been face to face, going over her report line by line, for two hours and seventeen minutes thus far. Did the woman think that the facts would change if she asked questions about each one several times in different ways?

"What about the young one... the Vulcan? She remained aboard for several days longer than the others. You and Commander Tucker both report spending quite a lot of time with her, and yet we have almost no information regarding her identity. In what century was she based? Did you speak with her about how close Starfleet might be to developing the technology used by her employers?

"That's information none of them would divulge. It might have interfered with the proper timeline," T'Pol answered flatly. Her questioner looked up from the screen and fixed T'Pol with a surprisingly acute look for someone who'd seemed so bored just a moment before.

"And then she just disappeared without warning. Did she give you an explanation? Did you record everything in your report?" she persisted.

T'Pol succeeded in keeping her facial expression under control, but the woman's line of questioning was beginning to alarm her.

"Her mission was over, and so she left. I am satisfied with the completeness of my report," replied T'Pol. Her statement was the unvarnished truth. Trip would become a target if the existence of a future Tucker with Vulcan blood were known. That possibility was unacceptable. Just the thought made her acutely uncomfortable.

"_Relax, darlin'. I'm not goin' anywhere. We've gotta make at least one little Tucker eventually, remember? It's part of the true timeline. T'Mir won't let anything happen to me."_ Trip's silent contribution to her inner struggle for control made her jump minutely. Her interrogator didn't appear to notice.

"_T'hy'la, I've asked you not to do that. It's very disconcerting when you offer commentary in my head without warning,"_ she remonstrated mildly. In reality, his mental presence soothed her, calming her discomfort.

The woman continued to study T'Pol's report with great concentration.

"_Sorry, darlin',"_ Trip replied, but the emotions she was picking up from him in the bond didn't feel the least bit contrite. He was bursting at the seams to tell her something, but he'd gotten so good at shielding that she couldn't tell what it was. He was doing it deliberately, she knew. He enjoyed tormenting her. Or rather, he enjoyed her reaction when she objected to his teasing.

T'Pol sat with forced serenity opposite the intelligence officer and tried her best not to allow the impatient curiosity she was feeling to slip past her shields. It was a losing battle, and she could sense what amounted to Trip's mental chuckle as he realized how eager she was to learn his news.

"_I am in the midst of my debriefing, husband_," she reminded him. _"Distractions could make me careless."_

"_Ah...so you think I should just tell ya my news... that way ya won't be distracted, right_?" Trip replied archly.

"_It would be the logical solution,"_ she returned reasonably.

"_Or I could just wait until you're done_..." There was a frustratingly tantalizing pause, and then, _"That would probably be best. 'Bye, hun!"_ he finished cheerfully. To her consternation, his barriers came up completely.

"All right, Commander. That's all. I'll call you if I need you again," said the woman briskly. She pushed back from the table and stood up. T'Pol nodded regally, but said nothing as the intelligence officer left the room.

As soon as she was alone in the conference room, T'Pol abandoned her serene facade, pushed to her feet with an irritated expression, and hurriedly departed to find one very aggravating Chief Engineer.

########################

Captain Jonathan Archer, who'd been closeted in his ready room in the hours since his first-on-the-list debriefing, stood to receive a Starfleet legend, the indomitable Admiral Ezra Black. The old admiral entered the room slowly and stiffly, as if moving too rapidly caused him pain. He was even grayer and grimmer than the last time Archer had seen him in publicity footage touting the new Daedalus cruisers as the workhorses of the "New Starfleet". The idiots in public relations had come up with that one, to boost public confidence during the war. Unfortunately, all the campaign seemed to have accomplished was to warn the Romulans that the new ships were coming.

Since Archer's arrival to Jupiter Station he'd been studying confidential Starfleet intelligence reports provided by the officer who'd debriefed him. The tide had been turning in recent battles—in the Romulans' direction. He was just beginning to realize how much information about the progress of the war had been unavailable to him—or perhaps deliberately kept from him—in recent months.

Archer pulled out a chair for the admiral and seated him before taking his place at the table. To his surprise, they were alone in the room. The padd the intelligence officer had given him sat on the tabletop between them with the most recent battle statistics on the screen. Admiral Black looked briefly at it with a sour expression and then got right to business.

"I see you've finally read the reports," he said tersely, almost as if he were accusing Archer of something. The younger man's heart sank. This didn't look like it was destined to be a pleasant visit.

"Ah...yes, sir," he replied with a rueful expression. "I had no idea things had gotten this bad."

"That's because Starfleet's had you swathed in cotton wool for the past year, son... but I'm here to set you straight," replied the admiral disapprovingly. Archer took a deep breath, swallowed, then gave the old man a sickly half-smile and his full attention. The shit was about to hit the fan.

"A year ago when we discovered your diplomatic screwup with the Betazoids, I advised Starfleet Command to relieve you of command of the _Enterprise _and just send you to Betazed rather than send the entire ship and its crew on a diplomatic mission," began the admiral bluntly. At Archer's look of offended surprise, Black clarified without apology, "That would have left _Enterprise_ free to engage the enemy with the rest of the fleet."

Archer nodded in sudden understanding. As much as he would have hated the idea on a personal level, it did seem tactically sound. It was strange that no one had even broached the subject with him at the time.

"Starfleet Command dismissed the idea," continued the admiral. "Apparently, a few of its more conservative members were of the opinion that trusting _Enterprise_ to an inexperienced captain was too much of a risk, and that keeping an NX-01 class starship 'in reserve' and out of the action would be Earth's best defense in the event of a strong push by the Romulans—never mind that it cut our offensive capability by a considerable margin—and that soon the _Enterprise_ was gallivanting all over the sector, no where near close enough to Earth to provide any meaningful defense but still at risk, engaging in solo battles against Romulan ships without any support from Earth forces..." Black shook his head, obviously frustrated.

"But, sir... I was never even offered the option of stepping down from command," protested Archer.

"I know that!" retorted the admiral, "Why do you think this situation's been such a thorn in my side? It's the admiralty that's the problem. Sometimes I can't decide whether some of them are too stupid to see what's right in front of them or whether they're deliberately trying to sabotage our efforts. They won't make use of their resources, and now look where it's gotten us." He gestured to the dismal battle statistics on the padd in front of him with a disgusted expression. "At first, I accepted the losses as the cost of learning unfamiliar battle tactics, but we've had time now to learn the Romulans' weaknesses..." He paused, glaring at Archer as if the whole thing was his fault. The captain of the _Enterprise_ did his best to look appropriately attentive, but he was beginning to be concerned about the old man. That much anger and frustration couldn't be good for him. Finally, Archer raised a brow like a Vulcan, waiting.

"They don't have any weaknesses to speak of, according to our most recent analyst reports. What's your opinion of that?" asked Black in challenge.

"Begging your pardon, sir, but I can think of at least two right off the top of my head," replied Archer earnestly. "Their warp cores are inadequately shielded... and they tend to fight to the last ship even against impossible odds. Retreat generally isn't an option for them unless their mission is strictly reconnaissance, and the _Enterprise_ has even had armed conflicts with ships which I assume were reconnaissance vessels. From that I have to conclude that their culture frowns upon retreating from combat even when the odds are unfavorable for engagement. We can use that to our advantage, can't we?"

Black paused, eying the younger man with a surprised expression. Jonathan Archer wasn't sure whether to be insulted or not by the admiral's obvious assumption that he was a tactical idiot. He'd been the captain of a warp-capable starship longer than anyone else on Earth. He had to have learned _something_ on the job.

"Yes..." replied Black cautiously. "Actually...I've been trying to tell our strategists that for months now," he said, eyeing Archer with the trace of a smile. "Where's your tactical station? We need a holographic display to consolidate our ideas. We might as well be in agreement when we go before Starfleet Command to propose a damage control plan." He eyed Archer with a calculating expression. "You're their golden boy, after all. If you can get them to listen to us, maybe we might even have a chance to win this damned war."

########################

Jacob Louer watched the Denobulan doctor reluctantly leave _Enterprise's_ Sickbay, herded by Wynona. It was too bad he wasn't human. Any human male would have been only too happy to spend two hours closeted alone in a room with the curvaceous Doctor Wong. As it was, it had been like pulling teeth to get the guy to leave with her.

"We're ready, Doctor," said Watsky. "Team Two is on its way." Louer turned to find one of the two young medics charged with the operation of the medical transporter standing at his shoulder, extending a device toward him. The young man's buzz cut made him look more like a soldier than a healer, but that was all right by Louer. He nodded, took the bioscanner from Watsky's hand, and then walked over to the sedated prisoner. At his order, Rostov was transferred from the biobed to a mobile stretcher and wheeled to the lab to take his place beside the medical transporter.

No consent had been asked from Petty Officer Michael Nikolai Rostov for the procedure he was about to undergo, but Rostov was guilty of treason, so his ass belonged to Starfleet to do whatever was required in compensation for his crimes. What Louer was about to do was a damn sight better than execution, and the psychotic engineer would get the best medical care Starfleet could offer for the rest of his life in exchange. Louer was military through and through. The ethical grey areas in which he operated no longer disturbed him. He knew his duty.

Louer scanned Rostov's body slowly, and then checked the image in the bioscanner for errors. As he did so, the main doors of Sickbay burst open. Louer pulled the curtain shut about the prisoner.

"Where's Phlox?" shouted a burly young man. He had an unconscious crewmate slung over his shoulder in a fireman's carry. The name badge on his uniform said "Mitchell". He was followed in by two security officers in Jupiter Station uniform.

Louer stepped forward and directed the crewman to an empty stretcher, where the muscular fellow rather unceremoniously unloaded his limp companion.

"Doctor Phlox is in debriefing. I'm Doctor Louer. What's happened here?" he asked the agitated young man. As the crewman began to speak, Louer eyed the pair of guards reprovingly over the young man's head.

"Norfleet was walkin' out of the debriefin' room while I was walkin' in, and then he just collapsed!" explained Mitchell in a concerned voice.

"Crewman Mitchell insisted on carrying Ensign Norfleet to Sickbay rather than waiting for a stretcher to become available," clarified one of the guards in a neutral voice.

"I see," replied Louer dryly. He turned to the figure on the stretcher and passed the bioscanner over Ensign Norfleet's body. As far as he could determine, the intelligence officer he'd been assigned to assist was in perfect health. Despite this, a convincing performance was required for security reasons. Fortunately, Jacob Louer was an excellent actor as well as a proficient surgeon. His expression became gravely concerned as he studied the bioscanner images.

"I'm afraid you'll have to leave, Crewman. Your friend has sustained a brain hemorrhage from a cerebral aneurysm. I'll have to operate immediately." Louer beckoned to the two guards standing outside of the curtain shielding the operative transporter and Rostov's stretcher, and they moved forward to take possession of Norfleet's stretcher, whisking it within the curtained alcove and out of sight. Mitchell stood there with a stricken expression on his face. He obviously considered Norfleet a friend. It was enough to move anyone to pity, or at least almost anyone.

"You may return to your duties, Crewman. I should know more about the ensign's prognosis in an hour or two," said Louer brusquely. Then he turned toward the curtain. There was no time to coddle the boy. He had to complete his task before Phlox returned.

Behind the curtain, Norfleet opened his eyes as Louer scanned his body with the bioscanner and then stepped to the medical transporter. Space was cramped within the small lab. The two medics checked the instrument settings a final time.

"Are you ready?" asked Louer respectfully. He outranked Norfleet, but anyone willing to do what Philip Norfleet was about to do deserved respect.

Norfleet took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and replied, "Go ahead."

There was a low frequency hum as the figures on the stretchers appeared to exchange places. A pause of several seconds followed, and then "Rostov" opened his eyes. Louer stepped toward his stretcher and began scanning his body for transcription errors. The medical transport of skin structures was a science in its infancy, and he'd had only two weeks to extend Phlox's work with prevention of transplant rejection from guinea pigs to humans. For two years he'd been working with a standard transporter modified by Starfleet R&D. The technology had this far saved the lives of twelve crewmen and women with otherwise fatal plasma burns who'd made it back to Earth after battles with the Romulans, but the results had been far from perfect, and frequent rejection of the transplants had been a major drawback. This unit was orders of magnitude more precise than anything he'd ever worked with before, and Phlox's novel technique would no doubt revolutionize the field once it was published in the medical literature. Louer would otherwise have never attempted what he'd apparently just succeeded in doing—a complete epidermal exchange with facial transplant in two otherwise healthy subjects.

"Will you do the procedure soon, Doc?" whispered "Rostov" to Louer. He gazed around the curtained alcove with a bewildered expression on his face. His eyes widened when he caught sight of the occupant of the neighboring stretcher. "Oh..." he added, looking a bit unsettled. Then he swallowed, and stared straight up at the ceiling again.

"Good job, Doc. I'm ready to go, now," he said firmly.

Louer smiled wryly. _You'll do, son_, he thought approvingly. _You'll do_.

#######################

"The transport comes for us tomorrow at 0900. We'll be staying in the Betazoid Embassy in San Francisco," reported Marella, who'd been in conversation with Paul Mayweather to the virtual exclusion of everyone else in the room for the entire meal. Lianna and Maya were playing in the next room with the door open, having made swift work of their lunch. Small voices and high pitched laughter wafted in from time to time, making the adults smile. Travis was flanked by his mother and Arabella, who'd both been unusually quiet since they'd finished helping the girls from the table, seemingly content to eavesdrop on Marella's conversation with Paul.

Travis couldn't talk to anyone. His mouth was full. He reached across the table, speared the last resequenced protein patty with his fork, brought it to his lips, and took a huge bite, savoring the familiar taste with a smile. He had no idea why his crewmates wouldn't ever touch the stuff. It tasted like home to him.

"I knew you'd missed my protein patties, Travis," said his mother approvingly under her breath. "Your brother thought you'd be spoiled for fresh foods by now, since _Enterprise_ always gets the best provisions, but I knew better. My patties were always your favorite." She smiled at him fondly as he chewed. Out of the corner of his eye, Travis noticed Arabella cutting a small piece from the untouched patty on her plate and tentatively taking a bite. He smirked a bit at the expression on her face and took another huge bite of his own, smiling back cheerfully at his mother. He supposed they _were_ an acquired taste.

"The seasoning is...distinctive," coughed Arabella as she reached for her drink and took a healthy swig. "What do you use?" Her eyes were wide and a bit watery from the spices, but she actually sounded sincere. Travis sighed. Now his mother was going to think the girl wanted to cook for him!

"It's an old family recipe of hot peppers, allspice, and thyme...one version of what's commonly known as Caribbean 'Jerk' seasoning," confided Rianna, laughing as Arabella fished a cube of ice from her drink and popped it into her mouth to cool her tongue. "Don't tell me there's no pepper on Betazed?" she teased. Arabella smiled sheepishly.

"We have many herbs we use for cooking, but I don't think I've ever tasted anything quite like this before," she replied, a little indistinctly around the melting ice cube. To his dismay, Travis found the resulting lisp endearing. He tried to ignore her and focused on his plate, chewing determinedly.

"I'd like you to show me how to make it sometime. I really enjoy learning new recipes," Arabella continued, her eyes cutting toward Travis as she smiled shyly. Rianna beamed.

Travis groaned inwardly. This was really going too far. He swallowed, took a deep breath, and pushed back from the table.

"Arabella, let's go for a walk," he announced firmly. "We have some things to discuss."

Arabella's eyes widened in alarm. "But, you just got here...and you haven't seen your family in months, and I have to watch the girls!" she protested.

"Nonsense! Go ahead, you two! We old folks'll still be here when you get back! The girls'll be fine," insisted Rianna with a broad smile. She rose from the table, watched in apparent approval as Travis pulled Arabella reluctantly to her feet, and practically pushed them out the door.

#######################

From his usual table in the back of the room, over the remnants of his lunch, Trip Tucker watched his friend and crewmate Malcolm Reed enter _Enterprise's_ dining hall. The security chief had a preoccupied expression on his face. He collected food and drink and sat down to eat at the closest table with the air of a man on automatic pilot.

Trip was worried about him. Their master plan to get Hoshi stationed planetside had not gone well. Hoshi had applied to Starfleet's Intelligence division, all right—and had promptly been advised of her new position as head of the real-time translation team to be stationed on Starfleet's yet-to-be-announced flagship. Her new posting would be taking her not only away from Earth, but into the thick of battle, where Starfleet Intelligence had hopes that she would be able to crack the codes the Romulans were using for transmissions during combat. It was a phenomenal opportunity for her to use her skills and a major career advancement. He knew that. Malcolm knew it, too. It was just that the promotion had thrown a monkey wrench into the Englishman's carefully considered and long-anticipated marriage plans, and Trip wasn't sure if his friend's spirit could take the shock. Just the idea of Hoshi going into combat on a ship which didn't include the rest of them in its crew complement had thrown all three of them for a loop.

Trip rose from his table and moved toward Malcolm's, intending to offer commiseration and the sort of support only a man in a similar fix could provide. Sometimes being in love with a military officer in wartime seriously sucked. He paused when he saw Hoshi, looking tired and pale, walking slowly toward Malcolm's table with a drink and a food tray in hand, and realized that three was a crowd. Depositing his used dishes in the recycler on the way to the door, he left the dining hall at a brisk walk, having decided to take advantage of the last few minutes of his lunch break to run an errand.

The Jupiter Station engineering team was scheduled to inspect and overhaul _Enterprise's_ warp and impulse engines starting at 1300 hours, and he had no intention of allowing them to touch anything without his approval. He had just enough time beforehand to check with the captain to see if Starfleet Intelligence would allow crew members to leave the ship while debriefings were still ongoing. His plans that evening depended on the presence of all of their friends at a surprise gathering onstation. He grinned broadly as he walked. T'Pol was gonna freak.

########################

They were silent on their way to the section's observation lounge. Arabella eyed Travis' grim expression warily as they walked. His face appeared sculpted from flawless metal, bronzed in the manner of some ancient Earth statue, and even more beautiful. His anger was unmistakable.

She deserved it, she supposed. What she'd had done to him was inexcusable among both their peoples. He'd been a good sport about it for Maya's sake, but he'd never understood the whole picture. Lana had never understood either. Arabella wasn't certain she really comprehended it herself. Before Lana's death she'd been certain that her attraction to Travis was a purely biological thing. Lana was her soul mate. Travis was... what? Her one night stand? Her guilty pleasure? Merely the father of her child?

It hadn't been an issue at home on Betazed. No Betazoid male had ever caught her attention. They were weak...spineless. She'd wanted a take-charge partner like Lana. Gender was honestly less important than a certain personality...that sparkle of energy, that drive that Lana had possessed. Now, the sparkle had been extinguished for...had it been only two weeks? And she recognized a similar drive in Travis, the personality that, along with his breathtaking beauty, had prompted her to allow him to father their child to begin with. She felt dirty, guilty to feel this way so soon. It was as if the feelings had always been there, waiting for the correct environment to come forward. As she grieved for Lana, she longed for Travis to comfort her, and felt ashamed of herself for her fickleness.

When they arrived at their destination, the lounge was deserted. No one on board the station had time to just sit and look at the stars anymore, thought Arabella. Everyone who wasn't vital to station operations was already planetside. Travis stopped walking only when he was virtually nose-to-nose with the observation window. She stood beside him, looking up at his profile. The top of her head barely reached his broad shoulders. He stared out at the unblinking stars, still avoiding her gaze, and his expression softened as if he were seeing old friends. Then he sighed.

"Beautiful," he whispered wistfully.

"Very," she replied softly, not sparing the window a second glance, smiling sadly as she watched his face and the interplay of emotions on it. His deep brown eyes met hers, and she saw his puzzled frustration at her double meaning.

"Just what is it that you want from me?" he asked plaintively.

Arabella blinked at that, taken aback by his directness. She studied his face for several seconds, contemplating her answer. The main problem was that she really wasn't sure what she wanted—except that she wanted time to figure it out.

"A second chance?" she ventured hesitantly.

"To do what?" he replied suspiciously.

Arabella looked down then, unable to bear his hurt and anger anymore. His fists were clenched at his sides. She took one strong dark hand in both of hers and teased it open. Then she interlaced her fingers with his and turned toward the observation window.

"To gain your trust," she said simply.

They stood side by side for a moment, looking at the stars. He'd ship out again in less than a month, she knew that. He was the father of her child, and her only source of physical comfort left in the universe; she knew that, too. He said nothing. She wasn't sure yet what his answer would be, but at least his fingers still gripped hers. It was enough for now. It had to be.

#######################

After discovering that her husband was too busy in Engineering guarding his beloved engines from nefarious Jupiter Station personnel to discuss his tantalizing exchange with her earlier that day, and following being waylaid by an excited Captain Archer and his new mentor concerning the presentation they planned to make to Starfleet Command on their return to Earth—after several _hours_ of strategic discussion—T'Pol had decided to retire to her cabin for meditation when the call from San Francisco came in. She activated the viewscreen. Ambassador Soval appeared very concerned. As a matter of fact, although it had been some time since she'd interacted with members of her own species, it certainly seemed to her that for a Vulcan he seemed genuinely distressed.

"May I help you, Ambassador?" she inquired, forgoing a greeting as an illogical waste of time in the midst of a crisis.

"I have just been informed by Jupiter Station authorities of the presence of Minister Kuvak of the High Council in their medical facility, reportedly in guarded condition," replied Soval, just as abruptly. "The physician there has requested permission to transfer him to our compound here in San Francisco via Starfleet medical transport immediately, primarily because—and I quote—he 'doesn't want him to die so far away from his own people'. Minister Kuvak, on the other hand, is insisting on being transported to Houston Hobby Spaceport instead. He's refusing to take my calls and will not listen to reason. I understand that his son lives near Houston, but Vulcan-knowledgeable medical professionals are difficult to find in Houston. I require your assistance with a compromise."

T'Pol gazed back at him in concern. Barring the Chief Minister herself, Kuvak of Vulcan was without doubt the premier statesman of Vulcan, one of the few remnants of the old regime, a visionary who'd adapted to the newly revealed teachings of the Kirshara with surprising flexibility for such an old man. His death would be a great blow to all of Vulcan, especially if it occurred prematurely on Earth due to a lack of available facilities.

"I asked my superiors why I was not informed of the minister's plans to visit Earth," continued Soval. "I was told that it was a personal voyage unrelated to his duties, and that he'd been placed on permanent medical leave from the High Council over six months ago. Do you have knowledge of this?"

T'Pol raised a brow. That shed some light on the situation, at least. A permanent medical leave was granted only in the case of incurable terminal illness. Minister Kuvak had known of his imminent death for at least six months. That explained his insistence on Houston. He was racing the clock of his impending demise in order to get to his son. Unfortunately, that fact would not make his death without access to adequate medical care any less of a diplomatic disaster.

"I do not, but I will speak to the minister and find an acceptable alternative," promised T'Pol. Soval relaxed visibly at her confident tone. He nodded, acknowledging her statement. His gratitude was obvious but unspoken.

"I will await your report, Commander," he told her. The screen went dark.

T'Pol stared at the screen for a moment, wishing that she felt as confident as she'd acted for Soval's benefit. Then she rose and left to find the captain. From the tales Trip had told her, Jonathan Archer had had firsthand experience with a stubborn and terminally ill father. Perhaps he could be of assistance.

########################

Jonathan Archer, released finally from his hours-long strategy session with Admiral Black, stopped for the third time at a directory on his quest for the location of the station's medical center. _Enterprise_ was still considered a high security area, and all civilians had been removed by order of Starfleet Intelligence. Elena Archer and her children, being yet in somewhat fragile medical condition, had been transferred to the station infirmary. Archer had also discovered, to his dismay, that one of the crew had collapsed following his debriefing—some sort of brain aneurysm, he'd been told—and had been transferred off the ship. Not only that, but Minister Kuvak of the Vulcan High Council had arrived and had somehow ended up occupying a bed, and Janice Hess was under observation for suspected early labor. Archer was off to visit all of them, provided he was able to find the place. Jupiter Station was huge.

He'd set out in the company of his second in command. T'Pol had asked him some rather personal questions about his father's final days without giving a reason for her sudden curiosity. He'd done his best to engage her in conversation, thinking that maybe she'd finally begun to process her mother's death and hoping that she would open up in return. After only a few minutes, though, they'd been offered a ride by one of the station security officers in one of the small electric carts that station residents used to get from place to place. T'Pol had hastily accepted, seeming to be in a hurry for some inscrutable reason she chose not to reveal, but he had foolishly turned it down, thinking that a walk would do him good. Two kilometers and twenty minutes later, he was hopelessly lost.

Archer was standing in front of the directory display scratching his head when the hum of an electric vehicle came down the corridor. He turned to find a cart full of familiar smiling faces.

"Need a lift, Cap'n?" Trip asked. He was riding shotgun with Travis, who piloted the cart with an air of familiarity, steering with one hand while holding a wide-eyed infant with a definite family resemblance on one knee. A beautiful young Betazoid woman was squeezed between Travis and Trip. She also had one hand on the infant, but her huge dark eyes were on Travis. On Trip's lap sat a very familiar little girl with black on black eyes and a head full of dark curls. She'd grown quite a lot since Archer had seen her last. She smiled at him impishly.

"We saved you a seat in the back, Captain. We're gonna go surprise T'Pol. Wanna come?" Lianna asked. Archer laughed.

The second seat of the three-seated cart held Rianna and Paul Mayweather and a Betazoid woman who was familiar to Archer. Marella of the Sixth House, maybe? Where had all the Betazoids come from? The third seat held Malcolm and Hoshi, with room to spare.

"Are we having a party?" he quipped as he climbed aboard. Malcolm smiled just a fraction, an expression that didn't reach his eyes.

"So I'm told, sir," he replied. Hoshi had eyes for no one but the Englishman, her face much too serious for such a lighthearted occasion. Abruptly, Jonathan Archer remembered her transfer, and realized the source of their solemnity. He debated whether what he was about to do amounted to a breach of protocol, and decided that the news was bound to come out soon anyway. Why force everyone to endure Malcolm's well-practiced doom and gloom for the entire evening?

"I hear congratulations are in order, Lieutenant," he told Hoshi quietly with a smile. "Keep this under wraps for now, but Starfleet Intelligence has claimed its own space aboard _Enterprise_. We've been made the flagship of the fleet, so now you'll have your own office and a brand new title, ship's Chief of Intelligence Operations." He grinned more broadly as both Malcolm and Hoshi grew wide-eyed at his revelation. "Don't let it go to your head, now. I'm still the captain," he joked softly.

"I'm staying aboard? Really?" whispered Hoshi in delight. At Archer's amused nod, she wrapped her arms around a genuinely relieved-looking Malcolm Reed and squeezed. Malcolm gazed over her head at his captain, evidently realizing that Archer had revealed privileged information prematurely for their sakes. He smiled wryly.

"Thank you," he mouthed silently. Archer smiled back, nodding, and then deliberately averted his gaze until Hoshi remembered where she was and pulled away from Malcolm to a decorous distance, looking a bit sheepish but very self-satisfied. Malcolm, of course, seemed to be in a much better mood.

Archer leaned forward to tap Paul Mayweather on the shoulder.

"So...how is it that the _Horizon_ ended up on Jupiter Station, and where did all these Betazoids come from?" he asked curiously. Mayweather's colorful response entertained them all the rest of the way to the medical center.

########################

"I will agree to being 'evaluated and stabilized' at the San Francisco Spaceport by a Vulcan physician. I will also agree to periodic visits by said physician at my new home in College Station," said the fragile-appearing old man imperiously. T'Pol had discovered, to her surprise, that a condominium just off university grounds had already been purchased and furnished for that purpose. The minister was nothing if not thorough in his preparations. He looked much stronger than she'd expected, sitting rigidly upright in his hospital bed within the drab and windowless room. T'Len stood at his bedside.

"I will not, however, agree to enter the San Francisco Vulcan compound or any other restricted enclave. That is not why I have made this voyage," the minister continued firmly. "I intend to remain on Earth for the remainder of my life and interact with the culture which my son has chosen to join. It is my dying wish, and I insist that it be respected."

T'Pol, rendered speechless by the minister's still considerable persuasiveness, exchanged a look with T'Len. The older woman shrugged minutely, raising a brow. This was, apparently, the best offer they were going to get.

"Agreed," T'Pol conceded. "I would like to point out, however," she continued tenaciously, "...that if you should become injured or lose your life through human action or inaction, there could be a detrimental effect on Earth/Vulcan relations. Perhaps if you would allow a security detail to be assigned to you..."

Kuvak harrumphed disapprovingly. T'Len gave him a reproving look, and he sighed, actually rolling his eyes.

"I will allow it," he told T'Pol crustily, "...but only in the spaceports and in transit, not in my home."

T'Pol nodded in acknowledgement, impressed by T'Len's ability to handle the old man. Of course, the woman had always been an excellent negotiator. T'Pol couldn't ever recall winning an argument with her, and T'Pol had been an unusually argumentative child.

"Very well, Minister. I will communicate your wishes to..." began T'Pol. The old man interrupted her.

"That title is no longer accurate. I am Kuvak," he replied. "Kuvak of College Station, Texas." He gazed directly at her in complete seriousness. T'Pol thought the appellation quite amusing, and wondered whether it was possible that he'd just made a joke. The implications were interesting, to say the least. She decided to take the statement at face value but found herself unable to voice the name without an unseemly show of emotion, so she simply nodded to both of them and turned to leave. T'Len followed her out of the minister's room, closing the door behind them.

"It is agreeable to see you again, T'Pol," said T'Len, pausing in the corridor with an expectant look on her face.

"And you," T'Pol replied politely, uncomfortable with the emotions the woman's unexpected appearance had aroused. She hadn't seen T'Len since returning home from her Kas-wan, when tradition had decreed that the services of a nanny were no longer required. She'd cried that day, despite her achievement. It had been difficult to let go of this woman who'd been like a second mother to her.

"I was grieved to learn of your mother's passing," offered T'Len. T'Pol raised a brow. It was generally considered ill-mannered to express grief so long after the death of another. What was done was done. T'Len seemed to be offering the comment as a means of expressing her condolences without implying that T'Pol still grieved. From what T'Pol could recall from her childhood, it was typical of T'Len to so strictly adhere to custom.

"Her loss was very unfortunate," T'Pol finally agreed, "...but her beliefs have been justified...primarily through the work of those such as Chief Minister T'Pau...and Minister Kuvak."

"Indeed. It must be gratifying to know that her contributions will be remembered," T'Len replied.

T'Pol nodded solemnly in agreement. Being with T'Len brought back memories of so many childhood arguments. She suppressed a childish urge to shout, in human fashion, "Screw her contributions! I want my mother back!"

Then the urge passed, as they all generally did if she managed to maintain control. T'Len had taught her that.

Down the corridor, the sounds of music and laughter in both adult and childish voices emanated from the common waiting area. The two women exchanged puzzled glances before walking side by side down the hall.

The room had been empty when T'Pol had passed by only moments before. Now it was full, and for a moment its occupants were unaware of her presence. Elena Archer held court at one end of the chamber, watching from her wheelchair as a small group of admirers gently passed her two children from arm to arm. The smaller of the two bundles seemed content to stare up at each new face in fascination. The larger and noisier twin ended up back in her mother's arms in short order after expressing her extreme displeasure and gracing Lieutenant Commander Reed with a chest full of partially digested mother's milk.

Lieutenant Commander Hess sat next to Mrs. Archer, watching and laughing. She appeared to be in no distress and still quite pregnant. Apparently her presentation to Sickbay earlier that day in "early labor" had been a false alarm. Strangely enough, two of the women in the ring of baby enthusiasts appeared to be Betazoid.

A rapid visual search of the rest of the room found no Jonathan Archer. Presumably he'd made it to the medical center on foot after her narrow escape from another rambling and incomprehensible discussion involving the meaning of life and quite possibly the birth of another species of antelope. He must still be making his rounds.

She searched the crowd for her husband. She could sense his presence and the fact that he was up to some mischief, but he still had his shields up. Abruptly, she felt as well as heard a high pitched squeal that made her wince involuntarily.

"I believe that you have an admirer," remarked T'Len ironically as a curly-headed guided missile shot up from her hiding place behind the sofa and ran full tilt across the room directly at T'Pol. Trip stood up from behind the sofa, laughing so hard he nearly fell over at the expression on her face.

"SURPRISE!" shouted Lianna happily in her highest register. She hit T'Pol's thighs with her full weight and grabbed hold. T"Pol staggered for a moment, held upright by a helping hand from a serenely amused T'Len, and stared down at the child in shock.

"_Where did you come from?"_

She'd said her goodbyes. She'd done her grieving. _This is impossible_, said her logical mind.

A pair of small arms around her waist made logic a liar. Lianna grinned up at her.

"_I came to see you, so now you don't have to be sad. Isn't it a good surprise?"_ she sent cheerily.

T'Pol reached down and laid a slightly trembling hand atop her head. She blinked several times, barely managing to keep tears at bay. The joy welling within her chest threatened to force an unseemly public show of emotion, but she contented herself with a mental exchange of affection so strong that it made both Lianna and Trip laugh and cry at the same time.

"Yes, Lianna," she said softly. "It's a very good surprise."

#######################xx

The Student Rec Center gym at Texas A&M was the home away from home for an assortment of athletic species. There were the intramural jocks and the wanna-be jocks. The "real" jocks trained with their teams and wouldn't be caught dead at the Rec Center. There were the students training as part of a requirement for a course. There were the body builders working out to look good so they could hook up—and to show off for their body builder friends. And then there were both students and staff who trained for personal health reasons. Janie like to think that she and Kov were in the last group, although sometimes she suspected that he enjoyed the "show off" aspect of his workouts a bit more that he'd admit.

Janie had just planted her feet and set the barbell across her shoulders to begin her squats when the new guy, an incoming freshman who went by the name of Bubba—and appeared to be just as intelligent and socially enlightened as the name implied—made the statement that got him into trouble.

"Guess I'll start over here with the free weights since the Vulcan's hoggin' the VGT again," he grumbled, grabbing a bar and loading it. He grinned at Janie, eyeing her long, sweatpants clad legs with evident appreciation. She sighed inwardly and pointedly ignored him as she began her first set.

The Variable Gravity Trainer had been sitting in the corner collecting dust when she and Kov had first arrived nearly a year before. It had been a gift to the college by Starfleet in the heyday of its popularity, when thousands of young men and women hoped one day to leave Earth and meet an alien face to face. The Xindi had effectively curbed that enthusiasm. No one trained for offworld duty anymore—until Kov had begun his daily routine.

For an hour a day, seven days a week, rain or shine, sick or well, Kov ran from precisely six pm to seven pm. At first he ran with the VGT set at Vulcan norm. When that was no longer challenging enough, he upped the setting. By the end of their first spring semester at A&M, one of the fraternities had begun a new hazing ritual. The pledge was required to mount the VGT after Kov's workout and remain standing for five minutes. Kov always blandly ignored the shenanigans that went on immediately following his daily run, but Janie always made it a point to be there. The look on the poor pledge's face as he fought to keep his knees from buckling was too good to miss. She guessed she should feel guilty for being so proud of her husband's strength, but she just couldn't help it.

"Seems like that Vulcan's _always_ on the VGT. It ain't like there's nuthin' else here ta do. He should give the rest of us a chance to try it 'stead a bein' such a hog," griped Bubba yet again. His complaint was followed by a grunt as he straightened his knees.

Janie finished her set of eight in silence, and then laid the barbell down. Bubba was red-faced, holding his breath, trying to do squats with weights which were obviously too heavy for him. She regarded him with irritation. He was gonna hurt himself, but she seriously doubted that he'd listen to her if she told him so.

"This gym is open from six am to nine pm Monday through Sunday. 'The Vulcan' exercises from six to seven pm. Pick another time. You've got 14 hours a day to choose from," she told him flatly. He grinned broadly and shoved the weights from his shoulders to the ground, where they bounced once. Janie winced at the potential damage to the gym's wooden floor.

"Will you be here if I come at seven instead?" he leered. He stepped into her personal space, and she could smell him. He had a typical college freshman male's hygiene habits. She held her breath and stared him down disapprovingly. At nearly six feet tall she topped him by at least three inches. He ignored her look and actually reached out to lay a hand on her shoulder in what he must have imagined was a flirtatious manner.

"No...and take your hand off me," replied Janie firmly, "I'm married." She squared her shoulders and set her stance. It was a reflex after all the jiujitsu classes she'd taken in the past year. Kov had insisted—for various reasons. Bubba's leer became a cocky grin. He easily outweighed her by fifty pounds.

"I heard," he drawled. "To the Vulcan, right? I'll bet he's a lotta fun in bed," he returned sarcastically. "Why doncha lemme show ya what a real man feels like?" His grin broadened as if he'd just told the best joke ever.

Janie's jaw dropped. The guy had known all along she was Kov's wife, and he'd insulted Kov anyway. As his other hand began to descend toward her opposite shoulder, it was as if he moved in slow motion. She didn't even have the time to get angry before her body took advantage of the opportunity. Without conscious thought, she grasped the wrist of the hand which rested on her shoulder and, using the weight of his body for leverage, just stepped aside as she pulled and twisted. In less than a second, Bubba was face down on the gym floor with his hand up between his shoulder blades and her knee in the small of his back. Unfortunately, he was too muscular to be so flexible, and she heard a distinct "pop" from his shoulder on the way down. He screamed like a girl.

"I said...take your _hand_ off me, you asshole!" she growled in his ear. "And if you ever touch me again I'll dislocate your _other_ shoulder!"

"OWW! SHIT! LEMME GO! SOMEBODY HELP!" squealed Bubba. Janie felt something unfamiliar rise within her chest. Triumph? Conquest? Whatever it was, it felt _good_. She smiled.

"Janie. Release him. Now."

Kov's voice was quietly disapproving. Janie looked up at his face, and was abruptly intensely ashamed of herself. She looked down at the muscle-bound boy whimpering on the floor in pain and was horrified by what she'd done. She dropped his arm and scrambled away from him, hugging herself. Tears began to flow. Kov ignored them.

"Allow me to assist you, sir," Kov told the cowering fellow. Bubba just rolled over to his back, cradling his arm to his chest. He had tears running down his face, too.

"You gotta do somethin' about that wife of yours, man...she's crazy! All I did was talk to her! I swear!" protested the boy.

Kov cut his eyes toward Janie for a moment, but said nothing. He held out a hand to the young man. "May I see your injured arm?" he inquired politely. "Perhaps I can help."

Bubba eyed Kov doubtfully for a moment, but when the Vulcan continued to wait patiently for his answer, he nodded tentatively and extended his arm. Kov took the boy's hand gently into his own, rested the other on his shoulder, and said, "You will feel some pressure." A quick jerk, another girlish scream from Bubba, and the boy's shoulder was back in place. Kov released him and stepped back.

"Please contact me concerning your medical bills if you find it necessary to consult a physician," he offered to the wide-eyed young man. Bubba stood and gingerly worked his shoulder, wincing a bit. He recovered his bravado as Kov encircled Janie's shoulders with one arm and guided her toward the door.

"You bet I will!" Bubba shouted angrily after them. "You'll be hearin' from my lawyer, y'hear?"

A couple of the regulars gave Janie grins and slaps on the shoulder as she walked out with Kov.

"Way ta go, gal. That's the way ta teach him some manners!" whispered an older woman admiringly. Janie thought she was one of the accounting professors, but she wasn't sure. She smiled wanly, acknowledging the woman's encouragement, but said nothing as Kov led her out to their vehicle. He opened the door for her, a supremely illogical bit of chivalry that he habitually did anyway because he knew it pleased her, and waited silently for her to take a seat before closing the door. She was sitting looking miserably at her hands, wondering exactly when they'd turned into dangerous weapons without her noticing, when he slid into the driver's seat beside her and shut the door.

"Are you all right?" he asked into the silence. To her surprise, his voice held no censure, only concern. She searched his face hesitantly. He didn't seem upset or angry, but it was hard to determine from his deliberately blank expression. She could tell that he was drawing on every ounce of Vulcan control these days to maintain the facade, but since he'd begun blocking her in their bond she'd had difficulty reading him. She was out of practice in figuring out what he was thinking without it. She understood his reasons, but it still felt lonely inside her head. She grimaced ruefully.

"Yeah, I guess so. Sorry about the meltdown. I dunno what happened," she replied. Kov sighed and shook his head.

"It is I who owe you an apology, Janie. I thought that I could spare you this by blocking our bond until my time had fully arrived, but my impending plak tau is obviously affecting you anyway." He smiled a tiny Kov-smile. "It is reassuring to know that your martial arts classes have been productive, though. You should be quite safe if I lose control."

Janie shook her head in exasperation. "I've been tellin' ya, darlin'... There's just no way on God's green Earth you'd ever hurt me! I have no idea why you're so fixated on protectin' me. I'm a big girl. I can take it," she told him earnestly. He cocked a brow.

"After this evening I'm beginning to believe you," he replied. Janie smiled mischievously.

"Does that mean you're gonna let me in?" she coaxed, extending two fingers to stroke the back of his hand where it rested on the steering yoke. He kept his eyes on hers and his expression stoic, but the physical contact enabled her to sense a small fraction of what he'd been hiding from her. She inhaled sharply as the heat of his slowly building plak tau burned through her chest and then southward. Her pulse accelerated. Kov's eyes narrowed marginally, and the burning desire she sensed from him took on a hard, dominant edge. He wanted—no, _needed_-to possess her. And, to her surprise, she craved his possession. The feeling was so unlike their usual easygoing partnership that it should have frightened her, but all it did was make her wish fervently that they were home, in private instead of in a ground car parked in a public parking lot.

She was so absorbed in the novel sensation that the alert tone of the car's vidphone failed to register. Kov blinked and slowly pulled his hand away from hers, reluctantly moving to answer the call while Janie hyperventilated, trying to recover.

"Yes?" he answered flatly—the response of a busy man with things to do.

The screen held the image of a well-dressed professional woman with an artificial smile.

"Professor Kov of Vulcan?" she asked brightly.

"Speaking," responded Kov cautiously.

"Melissa Stevenson of Woodlands Real Estate," said the woman with a tip of her head. "I apologize for disturbing you, sir, but Minister Kuvak left your vidphone code as a backup number. I am unable to contact him at the subspace address he provided, and I need confirmation of his arrival time in order to turn on water and utility service in his condominium. Do you know when he plans to arrive in College Station?"

Kov's jaw dropped. Janie grinned. She'd never seen her husband so completely floored by anything in their time together.

"My father?" he replied incredulously. "My father is on Vulcan!"

########################

Captain Milo Alonso of the San Francisco Department's Spaceport Rescue Station One looked nothing like the commanding officer of a crack team of firefighters as he paced back and forth beside the runway. He did, however, look quite a lot like a frantic expectant father, which was exactly what he was.

It had all started with a call he'd received early that morning. Apparently, Lieutenant Commander Janice Hess, the mother of his unborn son, was too far along in pregnancy to travel from Jupiter Station to Earth by commercial shuttle. That point Milo could understand, since she was roughly eight months and 29 days pregnant. What worried him was what had come next. After she'd reassured him that everything would be fine and that she'd be coming home by Starfleet medical transport instead, he'd been lulled into a false sense of security, only to be brought back to a state of sheer panic by a call from the medical transport vessel about three hours into the trip, while Janice was still enroute.

She was in labor. And he was on duty with no relief available.

So Milo had done what any red-blooded about-to-be-brand-new father would do, given the chance. He'd taken full advantage of his position. If he couldn't be off duty to meet the mother of his very-soon-to-be-firstborn at the airport, he'd damn well make it his business to be at the airport anyway—in the line of duty. His entire team had thought it was a great idea. Joey and Paula, the brother and sister duo who were his best two firefighters, had been positively enthusiastic about it. They hadn't been called to a runway emergency in months. It was time for a runway rescue drill.

And so he found himself beside the specially designated runway a quarter of an hour before the medical transport shuttle was scheduled to arrive. For protocol's sake, the rest of his team members were running through their emergency checklists. The plan was to stage a full-scale runway emergency drill—after the shuttle had arrived safely.

"Here she comes! She's ahead of schedule!" announced Joey, who'd been scanning the skies with binoculars while Milo paced. Joey's voice sounded a bit strained, as if he were stressed or nervous. Milo paused in his pacing to squint at the sky, where the shuttle was still too far away to be visible to the naked eye, and then studied Joey. He'd been keyed up and on edge all morning—almost as much as Milo was.

"You okay?" he asked Joey, puzzled.

The buzz-cut young man's eyes widened for a moment, and he exchanged a strange look with his similarly coiffed twin sister Paula before smiling nervously.

"Sure! Why wouldn't I be?"

"I think I hear the shuttle!" put in Lieutenant Efferson, who'd been diligently going over checklists as Paula checked the equipment.

Sure enough, the shuttle came into view a few seconds later, along with the roar of atmospheric thrusters. As it leveled out and approached the runway, however, it became apparent to them all that something was wrong. The engines sounded rough, and the shuttle's trajectory was erratic. The large transport shuttle had wings, since it was built for flight both in a vacuum and in atmosphere, and depended more on lift surfaces than the average shuttle. That made it safer, since it was capable of gliding and wouldn't drop like a stone if the engines happened to lose power completely—which was a fortunate thing since that's exactly what they did as the shuttle made its final approach.

The only sound as the shuttle landed was the rhythmic screech of the landing gear on the tarmac surface of the seldom-used auxiliary runway. At first, it seemed that the landing would be uneventful, but then Milo realized that the shuttle was going much too fast to stop where it should. Braking was obviously affected as well. He was already in the driver's seat of the emergency vehicle with the rest of his team hanging on the sides, heading toward the hangers and warehouses at the end of the runway when the shuttle struck the buildings with an ear-splitting crash and burst into flames.

Although the shuttle's main engines ran on deuterium, which was inert and non-flammable in the absence of an active fusion reactor, the zero-grav maneuvering jets in the wings still needed small tanks of flammable rocket fuel to function, and it was one of the wing tanks that exploded. Had the fire station team not literally been on their way _before_ the explosion had even occurred, all on board would have probably perished. Instead, Joey and Paula worked in tandem attaching hoses, in their uncanny almost miraculously coordinated way, and were spraying fire suppressive foam on the blaze before it even had the chance to reach the fuselage. The emergency exit door opened, and Milo rushed to it, only to be handed the end of a stretcher. On it lay an unconscious young man in Starfleet uniform. He rolled it toward Thadd Efferson, who took charge of it and pulled out his paramedic's bag to check vitals. A second stretcher followed the first. Another young man was on it, this one cuffed to the rails and in prisoner's coveralls. He was awake, and strangely calm given the situation. Milo passed him on as well.

_Where the hell is she?_ he thought, peering into the plane. A third stretcher nearly hit him in the face. To his utter surprise, this one had a white-haired Vulcan male on it. He was sitting up and looking around with interest, and really didn't look like he needed a stretcher. A Vulcan woman walked beside the stretcher. Milo nodded at both of them politely before pushing him down the line, craning his neck to look for Janice. He smiled when yet another stretcher was pushed out of the exit. It contained a very relieved looking and very pregnant blonde woman. To others she might have looked rather mannish and muscular, but to him she was the most beautiful woman in creation. He hauled on the end of her stretcher to clear the exit, and then was too busy being thoroughly kissed to see the rest of the passengers, including one starship captain and his wheelchair-bound wife holding two newborn infants, exit the shuttle behind him.

########################

The man who had once been Ensign Philip Norfleet, but who was now Petty Officer Michael Nikolai Rostov in every way that mattered, watched his heavily sedated alter ego being assessed by the paramedic. So far, so good. The man had no tricorder which might have revealed the absence of "Norfleet's" purported intracranial hemorrhage. Even if he had, there was little that the real Norfleet could have done about it, strapped hand and foot to his stretcher as he was. The medical transport staff had taken no chances with a known psychopath, especially one with established violent tendencies and a phobia of Vulcans aboard a transport with Vulcans as passengers.

The Vulcan minister seemed less frail than he'd appeared earlier. Earth's gravity and the adrenaline rush of an emergency landing were likely responsible. He'd climbed down from his stretcher and was insisting on going back aboard the shuttle for the rest of his belongings. A buzz-cutted pair of firefighters were arguing with him, trying to convince him to lie down so that they could assess him, but he shrugged them off. Only his female companion seemed to have any control over the old guy.

The huge firefighter who'd pulled them all out of the shuttle—the guy must have been nearly seven feet tall—was hovering over Lieutenant Commander Hess. From his appearance and the way she'd lip-locked him earlier, he must be the infamous Captain Alonso. It figured. He certainly looked tough enough with his shaved head and his tattoos. No male on _Enterprise_ had ever been brave enough to even ask the muscle-bound engineer for a date, much less get her pregnant.

Captain Archer was busy juggling babies as the paramedic moved from Norfleet's alter ego to Elena Archer. His assessment of her was necessarily brief.

"Hey, Thadd! Over here!" called the big guy. He sounded worried. Hess was curled up in a ball on the stretcher. Oh, boy. It looked like Milo, Jr. would arrive right there on the runway unless the ambulances arrived soon. Three sets of sirens answered his unspoken request. They arrived in line and parked in a row on the side of the tarmac.

One of the firefighters approached Norfleet's stretcher. Norfleet closed his eyes and played possum, since he was supposed to be sedated. The guy grabbed the railing and started to push. A female voice spoke softly. Norfleet cracked one eye open. It was the other firefighter, walking alongside the stretcher. She looked frustrated and angry.

"I can't get close enough to the damned Vulcan to do the job. His nurse is attached to him at the hip," she murmured.

"We need the distraction, Paula," whispered the man. "Just take 'em both out."

Paula nodded and began walking toward the old Vulcan and his nurse.

Norfleet realized instantly that he was right in the middle of an assassination attempt, and did the only thing he could think of. He "woke up."

########################

Kuvak took a deep breath of the thick, rich air of Earth and stood easily erect. The humans were behaving in a most illogical fashion. He had no need for medical treatment. He felt better at that moment than he had in nearly a year. Had he not had ample time for meditation during the flight, he would have found the pair of overly attentive emergency workers who were preventing him from reentering the vehicle to retrieve his annotated copy of the Kirshara very annoying. As it was, their stubbornness was merely an inconvenience. He was eyeing the starship captain, debating whether he should ask the man to go and get his book—surely they wouldn't deny Jonathan Archer access to the vehicle—when the shouting began.

"Kill the Vulcans! They'll fry our minds if ya don't! Do it now, Paula! Do it!" screamed the human strapped to the stretcher in five point restraints. Kuvak's eyes narrowed. The man was a criminal and known to be mentally ill, so his outburst could not be held against him—but who was Paula? Then he saw the female rescue worker, who'd been walking toward Kuvak with a first aid kit over one shoulder, evidently intending to try once again to assess him, freeze in her tracks while the other rescue workers turned toward her. One laughed—the one the huge human had called Thadd.

"Hey, Paula! He knows you by name!" the human teased. The woman flashed him an uncomfortable smile. Kuvak saw her ease what appeared to be a hypospray syringe out of her kit. Then she continued walking toward him. There was something in her eyes that made him wary of her.

"I'll escort you back to the transport to get your book if you'd like, Minister Kuvak," she offered, with a smile that seemed forced. Kuvak inclined his head and indicated that she should precede him. When T'Len, who'd been standing at his side in faithful seh'lat mode since they'd disembarked, made as if to follow him, he stepped back and murmured in her ear in Vulcan—too softly for human hearing—and then strode forward.

"_Watch her hands_," was what he'd said.

Her brow went up, but she followed him without a word.

########################

The sedative that Paula's accomplice had dosed him with after his outburst was taking effect, but Norfleet could see that the fourth vehicle to which he was being rolled was not the same as the others. From a distance it appeared to be an ambulance, but there were discrepancies in the insignia, and the make and model of the vehicle wasn't the same. They were taking him already. He could only hope that his warning had alerted the Vulcans enough to save them. Shouting behind him and the pounding of feet told him that the distraction that his abductors needed to get him away from airport security was in progress—hopefully not a fatal distraction. Hands reached out to grab his stretcher and hoisted it roughly into the vehicle. Rough male voices spoke as he faded in and out of consciousness.

"Any problems?"

"He's pretty out of it...nearly blew the whole operation, he's so doped up."

"Looks like it's a go, though. Team Two says the exit is clear. Every emergency vehicle and security officer in the place is on the runway behind us or headed in that direction."

"Go for it, then. The Boss really wants to meet Mr. Rostov, here."

Philip Norfleet lost the battle for consciousness knowing that when he awakened he would be ex-Petty Officer Michael Nikolai Rostov, late of Starfleet, and now the newest member of Terra Prime's inner circle.

It was time to take them down.

#######################

"He's gorgeous, guys," said Elena with a fond smile at the bundle in her arms. She sat in a chair next to Janice Hess' hospital bed with an armful of chubby brown-haired baby. Milo Senior sat on the edge of the bed with a wide, silly grin on his face. Janice looked tired but blissfully happy.

"You're just saying that because you want us to let you keep holding him," teased Janice. "You're a baby junkie! Don't you get enough with two of your own?"

Elena chuckled, running her palm over the thick curls on the crown of the baby's head. "I suppose I should...but it's almost as if I'm seeing the near future. Little Milo here seems older than Maria and Jon already. He's certainly bigger. What is he? Twelve pounds?" she joked. The pair on the bed exchanged an amused look.

"He can't help that his dad is six-nine and his mom eats like a horse," Janice quipped.

Elena laughed. She looked up reluctantly from the baby's face. "So...what's the plan now?" she asked the happy couple.

Janice looked up almost shyly at the huge man who was the father of her child, and he wrapped a proprietary arm around her muscular shoulders. "We get married," he said firmly. Janice turned red, but made no objection. It was sweet to see her as the blushing bride, but a bit odd. Elena looked inquiringly at her friend, waiting. Janice grimaced self-consciously.

"He's got it all arranged. He's even invited my brothers," she confessed. She looked up at him adoringly. "And I've gotten my transfer to Starfleet Engineering's R&D division. I start there in six weeks," she said with a grin.

"So...you're leaving _Enterprise_?" asked Elena, unsurprised by her friend's decision now that the ship was going into combat. She would have made the same choice in similar circumstances. Janice grimaced guiltily.

"Yeah," she admitted. "I hate to do it...but my family needs me, and I can make a difference here, too."

Elena sighed, smiling wistfully. "No need to justify your decision to me, dear...I agree 100. I wish Jon could do the same, but there's just not a lot for a starship captain to do here on Earth during wartime." Her voice, to her embarrassment, got a bit watery at the end of her statement.

There was an awkward silence.

"So...where _is_ the captain, anyway?" asked Janice, changing the subject hastily. Elena began rocking the baby in her arms. It was soothing.

"He's with the twins in the outpatient clinic doing their immigration physical. Since they weren't born on Earth they've got to be medically cleared before they can go home with us," she said softly, smiling at the baby's sleeping face. "I'm supposed to meet him there in ten minutes." Her voice trailed off. She felt the sadness coming back, so she rocked harder.

"Elena. Look at me," mumured Janice. Elena sighed, and then looked up. Janice was a little blurry. She smiled wryly at her friend.

"He's gonna be okay, Elena," Janice reassured her. "Just enjoy your time with him now. You've got a month. Don't waste it moping! And then we'll all hold the fort until he gets back."

#######################

The lobby of Starfleet Headquarters' medical facility seemed crowded and overly large to T'Len. Of course, she was accustomed to Vulcan medical facilities. They had very small waiting areas. Vulcans generally stayed home unless their presence was required, there being no logical reason to remain on the premises while their family member was recuperating. Humans didn't seem to agree with that philosophy. Apparently, it was common for entire families to encamp in the various waiting areas, waiting for their loved ones to give birth or come out of surgery or regain consciousness. Given this propensity, it was odd that the chairs were so uncomfortable.

Jonathan and Elena Archer exited the outpatient clinic double doors and entered the lobby, walking side by side carrying an infant each and the prerequisite bag of supplies. The captain noticed her and began walking in her direction. She rose to greet them. His wife seemed surprisingly cheerful considering the events which had recently transpired. Evidently, being back on Earth agreed with her.

"Captain...Mrs. Archer," T'Len acknowledged politely. Archer offered the ta'al.

"Hello again, ma'am. Is the minister well?" he asked with a smile.

T'Len cocked a brow. The man's curious mixture of both Vulcan and human courtesies was unorthodox, but appealing. He could almost be mistaken for a Vulcan child in his sincere attempts at polite behavior.

"He is being evaluated in concert by both human and Vulcan physicians as we speak, but it appears that Earth's atmosphere and gravity have had a salubrious effect on his condition," she replied. Elena Archer beamed.

"I understand that the two of you are moving to College Station. That's not far from the home in Houston that Jon and I are buying. Maybe we can get together sometime with the Minister's son and his wife. Kov and Janie are a wonderful young couple. I think you'll like them," she enthused.

"I have met Kov. He was a difficult child," T'Len replied flatly. Elena's smile wilted a bit, and she exchanged a look with her husband. T'Len realized that this was an instance in which complete honesty was better tempered with diplomacy. "Minister Kuvak has informed me that he has matured, and that he is now an admirable young man," she qualified. Elena looked hopeful, but seemed at a loss for words. There was an awkward pause.

"I look forward to our future encounters," T'Len offered finally. She raised a hand in the ta'al to them. "Peace, and long life."

Jonathan Archer returned the salute and gave the proper response in a somewhat relieved tone of voice before leading his wife away.

"Doesn't pull any punches, does she?" whispered Elena once they'd gotten a few meters away. She was obviously unfamiliar with the acuity of Vulcan hearing.

"No...but you really want to stay on her good side," murmured Archer. "She's the one who took out that would-be assassin in the airport. I hear she used to be a nanny, but she's no Mary Poppins. I doubt spoonfuls of sugar are her thing."

Elena Archer laughed as the two of them stepped out into the San Francisco sun.

Minster Kuvak stepped through the outpatient clinic's double doors and strode vigorously to her side. He handed her a padd.

"My examination results," he said briskly. She took the padd from him with an inclination of her head. "Come. We must go back to the airport. Our transport leaves for Houston Hobby in two hours," he said. Then he turned toward the exit, more eager than he'd ever admit to be on the way to see his son, she was certain.

T'Len followed, making a mental note to research "Mary Poppins" at her next convenient opportunity.

#######################

Commander Trip Tucker walked down the exit ramp from the commercial shuttle with a duffle bag over one shoulder. His eyes searched the receiving area. It was nearly deserted. San Francisco Spaceport was a major hub of space travel for the Northern Hemisphere. The travel limitations imposed by Earth's government since the beginning of the war were obviously taking their toll. His face lit up in a broad smile as he waved at the elderly couple who waited for him. He half-ran to his parents and caught his mother up in a huge bear hug.

"You're here!" she squealed as he squeezed the wind out of her. "You're home!" Trip laughed and spun her around.

"Where's T'Pol?" asked his father innocently.

"Hush, Charles!" urged his mother. She gave her husband an exasperated look and then appealed to her son. "I told him, Trip," she avowed. "I promise!"

Charles grinned sheepishly. "Sorry. I forgot." Then he wrapped one arm around his son and gave him a manly half-hug.

Trip sighed and shook his head, grinning. He really couldn't blame his dad. It was kinda sweet the way Charles Tucker had taken to his Vulcan daughter-in-law. All he'd told them was that T'Pol was coming later in order to avoid publicity. He'd decided not to remind them that if Starfleet were to become officially aware of his marriage to _Enterprise's_ First Officer, the two of them would undoubtedly be separated, to serve on different ships for the remainder of the war. His mom, of course, had assumed that they were having marital difficulties. He guessed maybe it was time to tell them the truth.

"We got rooms at that little hotel ya told us about, son...but I have ta tell ya, it's no where near as nice as the Spaceport Hilton was last time," reported Charles.

"Charles! Hush!" chided Catherine. She smiled reassuringly at her son. "It's a perfectly charming little hotel...so quaint, and right in the middle of embassy row. We'll be seein' all kinds of interestin' people, I'm sure." Trip grinned, shaking his head over his parents' typical responses to the situation.

"Ya got more luggage, son?" asked Charles, turning toward the baggage pickup sign. Trip reached out to stop him.

"No, Dad. This is all I've got," he said, indicating the duffel he was carrying. "Besides...we need to wait here a minute. I want ya'll ta meet somebody," he added with an anticipatory grin.

########################

As the three of them turned toward the gate from which Trip had just arrived, Catherine Tucker saw a small but noisy group exit and began to walk down the concourse. It consisted of Lieutenant Travis Mayweather, well known to Catherine from Trip's letters and pictures home, an older dark-skinned woman who carried an infant girl, and three very lovely young women with heads full of thick black curls. Suddenly, a little girl who bore a definite family resemblance to at least two of the women thrust her way through, pelting down the concourse wailing, "Waaaait! Trip-T'hyla! Don't leave yet!"

To Catherine's confusion, Trip immediately began to chuckle, and he crouched down to receive the small torpedo with arms wide, grunting as she made full-bore impact with his chest.

_Lianna_, Catherine realized, smiling. As unlikely as it seemed, the child could only be the Betazoid prodigy Trip had told them about.

"I'm gonna be at the hotel right next door to the embassy, you silly goose," he was reassuring the little girl. "I'm not leavin' yet!" Lianna said nothing, merely resting her forehead on his chest while she wiped tears from her face with one hand.

"Unca Travis said you were leavin'," she muttered into his chest, sniffing.

"I meant you were leaving the airport to go to the hotel, not leaving for good! Honest!" protested the helmsman as he strode up with the rest of his entourage. He looked so happy he was positively glowing. Charles stepped forward to shake his hand.

"Nice ta finally meet ya, son... Charles Tucker," he said heartily, gripping the young man's hand enthusiastically. Travis squeezed back, grinning. He indicated the woman beside him with his opposite hand.

"It's good to meet you too, sir...and I'd like to introduce my mother...and my daughter Maya..."

While Charles busied himself with introductions, Catherine stood behind him, smiling pleasantly and studying the three young women. Two of them smiled in return, nodding at Charles as Travis told his story of amazing coincidences and unlikely encounters. The third was on her knees beside Trip, speaking softly to the child in his arms. Catherine couldn't see her features, covered as they were by an unusually riotous headful of sable curls, but something about her seemed familiar. The woman extended a hand and touched Trip's shoulder. He looked into her face, and Catherine's eyes narrowed disapprovingly. The boy really shouldn't look at any woman besides his wife that way. She'd have to give him a talking to. No wonder T'Pol was upset with him.

The little girl released Trip and turned to the woman, wrapping her arms around her neck. When she did so, the woman's hair seemed to _shift_ a bit. That's when Catherine realized she was wearing a wig, and the situation became crystal clear. She had to get Charles away from here before he messed up everything.

"This is Marella of the Sixth House, her sister Arabella, and... Lianna's new nanny, sent from the embassy to meet us at our connection on Yosemite Station... ummm... Paula, right?" continued Travis hesitantly. The third woman kept her eyes averted and her attention on the child, but everyone else's attention was focused on her. It was now or never. Catherine leaned forward and placed her hand on her husband's arm.

"I'm tired, Charles," she whispered into his ear. "Can we plan to meet them later to get acquainted? I really need to get to the hotel." He turned toward her with a concerned and quizzical expression, but did as she asked without question.

"Trip? Your mama's beat, son. You wanna stay here with your friends or head back to the hotel with us?" Charles inquired. Trip stood, leaving Lianna in the arms of her "nanny".

"We'll meet up with 'em later, Dad. Didn't Mom tell ya? Our hotel's next door to the Betazoid Embassy," he replied cheerfully. Then he waved at the little girl, who grinned up at him. Although she said nothing, he laughed out loud.

"You bet, baby girl. We'll hit the beach tomorrow. I promise!" he said.

The three of them were out of the main terminal and standing on the curb in the hot sun waiting for a cab when Catherine finally considered it safe enough to say anything.

"It's awful warm for a wig like that, Trip. You wanna tell us what's up with T'Pol and her play-actin'?"

It was obvious that the two Tucker men were father and son. They looked just alike with their mouths open.

########################

Malcolm was at peace—for the first time in what seemed like years—walking along the path which ascended Mount Tanigawa with Hoshi. Only five hours before, they'd arrived in Tokyo Spaceport with its suffocating crush of people, all of whom had seemed to know precisely where they were going and to be in a great hurry to get there. An aircab had transported them to the base of the mountain in Gunma prefecture. Now that they'd nearly arrived at their destination, it was a tremendous relief to be unsure about where the next step would take him and in no particular rush to find out.

The rocky path was slightly uneven, the stones no doubt worn down by time and thousands of pilgrims' feet over the centuries. The air was misty and cool at that altitude, and he could hear the rush of the waterfall she'd told him about up ahead. He reached out to grasp her hand as they walked, and she smiled at him, the excitement of their imminent arrival evident on her face.

"My grandparents used to bring me to visit this place every year when I was little," she told him. They rounded a boulder in the path, and there it was—a shimmering waterfall tumbling from the cliff face opposite the path, with a large rocky slab extending from the path out over a pool bubbling with the force of the falling water. The scene looked eerily familiar to him. He could see the red-painted gables of the temple situated at the top of the falls. An orange-robed shaven-headed boy stood on the veranda of the well-kept but obviously ancient wooden structure. The boy struck a large cast-iron bell hung in the eaves and then waved vigorously, smiling as he caught sight of them at the foot of the falls. The bell's melodious tone rang out over the water. Hoshi waved back at the young monk, and then paused as if to enjoy the view.

"My grandfather would tell me stories about water spirits...kappas...every time we came to this point," she said, raising her voice over the din of the waterfall, "...until my grandmother made him stop because they frightened me." She shrugged, smiling wryly. "I liked the stories, though. They were like ghost stories, you know? They scared me in a fun way, because I knew that Ojisan would never let anything hurt me."

"This is where you came...in your mind... after linking with the Romulan ship. Your safe place," he told her in sudden realization. Hoshi smiled sheepishly, nodding her head. He smiled sympathetically and reached for her reflexively, remembering the day when Agent T'Mir had pulled him into her healing meld so that he could help her entice Hoshi out of her mental retreat. He'd nearly lost her then.

Hoshi wrapped her arms around his waist and held on tight. They stayed that way for an endless time without speaking. Malcolm felt the last vestige of nervousness over what was to come vanish in the mist.

"It's just not fair," announced Hoshi plaintively with her face pressed against his chest.

He planted a kiss on the top of her head. "What's not fair, sweetness?" he asked fondly, pulling her more closely against his chest.

She pulled back to look him in the eye. "We'd be married now if I hadn't been given that blasted promotion!" she groused. "Now we have to wait until the war's over!" Her hand came up to comb the damp curls out of his eyes. He smiled.

"Actually...I've been meaning to talk to you about that... Did you know that Japanese law still recognizes religious wedding ceremonies as legal and binding, and that written records without electronic backup are very difficult for Starfleet to access...especially if they're kept in the archives of a temple which can only be reached by climbing a mountain on foot?" he asked slyly. She cocked her head at him with narrowed eyes.

"Who have you been talking to, secret agent man?" she asked suspiciously.

His smile broadened. "One of the perks of being security chief is that I have access to personnel files... containing things like the vidphone codes of the crew's family members."

Hoshi had no time to reply, for at that moment a procession was leaving the temple, led by Hoshi's grandfather carrying a crimson parasol. His white over-robe contrasted sharply with his brilliant red underskirts, the traditional wedding uniform of a Shintobuddist priest. Following him were two junior priests in similar garments, a man in a conservative black kimono that Malcolm recognized as Hoshi's father, and a few well-dressed women and men.

"You didn't!" replied Hoshi, shocked. "I can see Ojisan doing this; he's always been a romantic... but, my father is even more of a stickler for the rules than you are, Malcolm! How did you get him to agree to it?"

Malcolm shrugged. "I explained our predicament. The rest was your grandfather's idea."

Hoshi looked back at the wedding procession as it made its way down the steep path on the cliff face. A smile began at one corner of her mouth and spread slowly as her family approached. She turned to Malcolm finally with a joyous grin on her face.

"I hope you're really ready for this, because Papa and Ojisan won't let you back out now!" she teased. Malcolm smiled back weakly and turned to study the two men's faces. They certainly were a solemn duo. He forced himself to keep smiling. He loved Hoshi, right? How bad could it possibly get?

########################

Kov surreptitiously rolled his right shoulder as he stood waiting, wincing when the grooves Janie had carved into his back with her nails opened up and began to sting again. Their link in the bond remained intense after their activities the previous evening, and she shot him an apologetic grimace.

"_Sorry, sweetie. I'll trim and file 'em tonight_," she sent remorsefully. He returned wordless reassurance and possessiveness as he visually scanned the arrival gate where his father would soon appear. The plane was late, and Kov had to forcefully suppress his impatience. He would have much rather been elsewhere, continuing to engage in the activities that this appointment had interrupted. Janie shifted her feet in obvious discomfort. Her walk was odd today. She described it as being "saddle sore".

Letting her in and dropping his barriers had triggered his plak-tau, just as he'd feared. At this point, of course, after the fact, he realized that there had been nothing at all to be afraid of. The wildest urges had abated within hours—hours of intensely athletic sexual activity. What remained was manageable in public with considerable effort but not any worse than what he'd endured for the past several days trying to block her out. Sharing his condition with her in the confines of the bond, an action which he'd feared would only make things worse in view of her apparently limited emotional control, had in fact made the whole situation much easier to bear for both of them. Their bond burned now with an undercurrent of passion which he would have not believed possible—at least not while standing in public, completely clothed and showing no outward evidence that anything the slightest bit unusual was happening. They'd discovered that it was wise not to meet each other's eyes except in private, though. Direct eye contact tended to make their clothes come off. The effect was so predictable that since the previous evening, until they'd been forced to get dressed to meet Kov's father at the airport, they simply hadn't bothered to wear any.

Once Kov had been made aware of his father's imminent arrival, he'd tried to contact him, to no avail. Fortunately, Janie's unlikely friendship with Vulcan's crotchety ambassador to Earth had given them the leverage they needed to extract information from High Council sources. Kov had had no idea that his father's health was poor again. He was perturbed with his father for keeping his terminal condition a secret, but couldn't help but feel touched that Kuvak had gone to so much trouble to spend his final days with his family on Earth. The sources he'd spoken with on Vulcan had made it sound as if his father was literally on his deathbed, which was why the sight of him striding vigorously down the concourse with T'Len in tow came as a great surprise. He kept his surprise to himself, however. His father would not have approved.

"Father." Kov acknowledged with a nod and an eyebrow raise Kuvak's unexpectedly hale and hearty appearance. "You're looking well."

Kuvak took the unexpected appearance of his remaining family in stride.

"Today is a good day," he agreed. "I believe it to be the effect of the reduced gravity and the higher oxygen content of Earth's atmosphere." He took a deep breath and looked around at the crowd of humans rushing all around them. Almost childlike in his obvious curiosity about his surroundings, he seemed quite unlike the rigid and demanding taskmaster of Kov's childhood. He seemed to notice Janie, then, and stepped forward with a slight bow, giving her, to Kov's utter astonishment, an English translation of an ancient traditional greeting usually offered to the senior female of a family by a visitor to her home.

"May you prosper, Ida Jane. I am honored by your hospitality."

Janie smiled back at him uncertainly and gave Kov a quizzical look. He sent her the equivalent of a mental shrug. With Kov's mother dead, his parents having no living female relatives, apparently his father had decided to acknowledge Janie's status as the senior female in the family. This pleased Kov, as it bode well for his father's acceptance of their marriage as binding and legitimate. His timing was puzzling, though. Kuvak's purpose soon became obvious with the next introduction.

Kuvak indicated his companion. "I believe you know T'Len, my nurse?"

The grey-haired Vulcan woman was well-known to Kov as the bane of his adolescent existence. She'd been their first housekeeper after his mother's death. Although she'd been far from cruel, his grief and natural rebelliousness had butted heads with her overdeveloped sense of control. The results had not been pretty. He hadn't had any contact with her since he'd run away to join the V'Tosh Katur.

Kov had discovered through his recent inquiries that T'Len had left the service of their family and gone back to school for nursing training after his departure, and that his father had recently rehired her full-time in the final stages of his illness, in preference to other candidates because she knew his habits. She apparently had turned out to be an excellent nurse—a very displeased one at the moment, based on the disapprovingly prim expression which currently graced her features. Kov decided he would ignore her displeasure, and actually struggled not to smile when he realized what his father had done. As Kuvak's nurse, T'Len exercised a certain amount of professional authority over her charge. By acknowledging Janie as female head of the household, however, Kuvak had also subtly pointed out T'Len's role as a family employee under Janie's authority. T'Len was not pleased, but at least she was quick on her feet. She nodded politely at them both.

"My lady... young master," she said blandly. "It is agreeable to see you again, Kov," she told him. Her sincerity was in question in Kov's mind, but at least she was making the attempt. It was a hopeful first step if the four of them were really going to try to coexist in the same small town.

"And I, you," replied Kov, "...both of you," he added toward his father, and meant it.

"If you'll go get their bags, I'll get the car," offered Janie with a smile, oblivious to her newfound status.

"This is all we have," said T'Len efficiently, hoisting two small carry on bags in one hand with little effort. "The rest is being shipped directly."

Kov eyed his father hesitantly. On closer inspection, he was thinner than Kov was accustomed to seeing, and somewhat pale.

"Should I obtain an electric vehicle to transport you to the car?" he offered. Kuvak raised a brow at him.

"I believe I would prefer to walk," he announced breezily, and then proceeded to do so. The rest of the group had no choice but to follow. His voice trailed behind him as he led the way.

"Have you seen my condominium? The images the real estate agent sent were most aesthetically pleasing. There's something called a rock garden on the property, very similar to our meditation gardens back on Vulcan..."

########################

"Look! The water's going to eat my tower again!" cried Lianna excitedly. She laughed in delight as the next wave lapped her ankles and struck the base of the precariously balanced structure she'd constructed of wet sand, causing it to melt into a misshapen lump on the shoreline. Trip laughed with her.

"Quick! Make another one!" he exclaimed, and they were at it again, grasping heaping handfuls of sand and piling them on top of each other as fast as they could go in order to beat the next big wave. The two of them were covered in wet grit from their scalps to the tips of their toes, so much sand in Trip's case that one could barely see his bathing trunks—a by-product of being quite recently buried up to the neck by a delighted five year old and several nearby accomplices. T'Pol could not recall the last time she'd seen and _felt_ him so happy.

The sun, reflecting from the sand, shone so brightly on the beach that day that the glare reminded T'Pol of Vulcan. The moist breeze from the ocean, the cries of sea birds, and the sound of the surf, however, were unmistakably of Earth—and somehow also unmistakably a part of her bondmate's soul. He belonged here.

"I'll race you to the water!" shouted Trip. Then he hung back to allow Lianna to beat him into the surf, following her in and grasping her around the waist as the waves threatened to knock her off of her feet. He hoisted the little girl to his shoulders and headed deeper, going under just enough to keep Lianna screaming with excitement and coming up without his sandy coating.

"Come on in! The water's great!" he yelled across ten meters of surf and beach to T'Pol. Silently, he sent, "_I double-dog-dare ya!"_

They both winced as Lianna, forgetting volume control in her excitement, chimed in mentally with, "_ME TOO!"_, grinning broadly from atop Trip's shoulders.

T'Pol's lips twitched a fraction. "_Very well,"_ she replied. Tugging her bathing cap more firmly down over her ears and brows, she stood and shed her coverup, blandly ignoring the multitude of heads turning in her direction as she did so.

It puzzled her why humans—especially the males—always did that. It wasn't as if they'd never seen a humanoid body before. She was even clothed, after a fashion. Admittedly, the navy blue one-piece racer-back swimsuit that she wore might as well have been painted on her skin for all it concealed of her anatomy, but others were wearing much more revealing clothing, exposing vast expanses of skin to the damaging rays of the sun. She found those persons much more interesting to look at. Such variety.

She strode down the beach toward the surf. Trip watched her with a smirk on his face, obviously expecting her to hesitate at the water's edge—so she didn't. Clenching her teeth, she walked into the water and kept walking, only panicking for a second as an unusually forceful wave broke against her while she was wading chest deep, almost knocking her feet out from under her. She was saved from going under by a pair of strong arms around her. She looked up into brilliant blue eyes in a slightly reddened face.

"You are burning," she chided him. "You should reapply your sunscreen."

Trip laughed. Lianna's arms and legs were around his neck, so he sounded a little choked. "You surprised me, darlin! Gimme a little warnin' before you come chargin' in so I can put Lianna down next time."

Lianna, as if on cue, squirmed to get down. Trip led T'Pol to shallower water and leaned over to deposit Lianna in the sand, whereupon she ran off happily toward her co-excavators on the beach. Charles and Catherine Tucker waved at them from beneath a huge beach umbrella. Trip waved back. Then he turned to T'Pol. His grin broadened.

"Want another swimmin' lesson?" he suggested, wiggling his brows enticingly.

T'Pol raised a brow. Her last "lesson" had somehow ended up being more foreplay than lesson.

"I believe this place might be too public for what you have in mind," she demurred. He stepped up and took her into his arms. She could feel his body respond to hers through the whisper-thin fabric of her bathing suit. Fortunately, he'd opted for trunks rather than the "racer suits" she'd seen other men wearing that day, otherwise she would have had to bring him a towel if he wanted to exit the water with his modesty intact. Despite the fabric of their suits, her body burned at the contact. She closed her eyes, fighting the instinct to engage in behavior which was entirely inappropriate. His ability to arouse her to this point in a public place in the full view of strangers, a condition she would have found unthinkable before they met, never ceased to surprise her.

"We could leave Lianna with my parents for an hour or so and go back to the hotel..." he murmured into her ear. She shivered. And then she took a deep, calming breath.

"Agreed," she said. Then she took his hand and led him briskly out of the water. It would be logical to take full advantage of their hotel facilities, she decided, and having Trip's parents in the next room _was_ a bit—inhibiting.

########################

_Epilogue_

The atmosphere on the bridge of _Enterprise_ was somber that morning. Everyone seemed focused on the task at hand, centered and determined to preserve the world with which they'd just become reacquainted while on leave.

Jonathan Archer sat in the command chair, quietly contemplating his bridge crew as they prepared for departure. His First Officer seemed... He supposed "content" was the best description. The ship's log had listed her leave destination as the Vulcan compound in San Francisco. He hadn't asked any questions, but both she and Trip had matching tans. He'd kept their secret thus far. There was no reason at this point to blow their cover. Despite their relationship off duty, the two of them made much too valuable a team while on duty to risk splitting them up over a technicality.

Lieutenant Commander Reed had made no secret of his plans to go mountain climbing with Hoshi in Japan while on leave, and Archer was certain that there was something going on between them. Now that they were both senior officers in charge of their own departments, though, even Starfleet was willing to turn a blind eye. Since Malcolm was indispensable to Archer as Chief of Security and Starfleet Intelligence was just tickled pink to finally have an official department on board the flagship of the fleet, Archer didn't see anything short of a public marriage ceremony ever removing either of them from active duty on _Enterprise_.

Hoshi was even back on the bridge. Her first act as "Chief of Intelligence Operations" had been to commandeer the Communications station as a vital part of her information gathering system. Archer couldn't argue with her; she was Starfleet's current golden girl. So her brand new office was converted into a monitoring station staffed by specially trained junior level comm officers searching for Romulan coded transmissions in all wavelengths and frequencies, and Lieutenant First Class Hoshi Sato remained on the bridge, doing double duty as comm officer and decoding expert—which is what she'd been doing all along anyway. It worked, so why fix it?

Lieutenant Mayweather was one hundred percent doting father now that Maya was on Earth—probably for the duration of the war now that the final push was on. Archer would have found his constant bragging about the amazing abilities of his infant daughter annoying if he hadn't been twice as bad regarding his own children. They were growing so quickly. By the time he returned home, they'd be walking and talking most likely. It had been painful to leave them, but the idea of any harm possibly coming to them was even more painful. Elena had been dry-eyed and upbeat at their leave-taking. She was a capable woman. They were in excellent hands. Now all he had to do was prevent the Romulans from getting to them.

"I have ship-wide comm on line for you, Captain," said Hoshi. Archer blinked, and then he smiled wryly. They'd expect a few words from him, of course.

"This is the captain," he began confidently. It was always a morale booster when the captain sounded cool and composed—even when he was quaking in his shoes over what the Romulans might do if _Enterprise_ failed to stop their advance.

"I hope all of you got a good taste of home while on leave these past few weeks. I know I did, and it's made me even more determine to protect what's ours." Heads nodded and smiles appeared on the faces of the bridge crew. Encouraged, Archer continued.

"Five years ago, we started this mission dedicated to exploring the last frontier, to finding new worlds and peoples, and to going where no human had ever gone before. Now, an enemy is among us who seeks to limit that exploration...an invader with conquest and destruction in mind." He paused for effect. There were no eye rolls this time. He had their attention.

"We could retreat...retreat timidly back to Earth and set up a defensive perimeter, waiting for the enemy to come to us...but that's not our way." He got smiles and nods again with that one.

"So today, we're setting out to find the enemy...to go boldly out and let him know that we won't be threatened... we won't be defeated...and we won't sit idly by while our allies are attacked!" Spontaneous applause was his reward for that statement.

"I've served with most of you now for many years, and I know without question that you are the finest crew in the fleet," he said firmly. His eyes shone. "Together we're going to find the enemy... and together we're going to make him regret he ever messed with us!" The applause was so loud that it drowned out his traditional finish. "That is all."

He turned to Hoshi, but she'd already cut the comm, smiling approvingly at him as she did so. He smiled back. It was a good start. The communications expert approved of his speech.

"Mister Mayweather," Archer announced firmly, "Take us out...quarter impulse."

He kept his eyes on the front viewscreen, focused on the stars, as the best helmsman in the fleet eased them out of Jupiter Station's space dock, and kept them there as he said, "Let's go find some Romulans, ladies and gentlemen. All ahead, warp one. The fleet's waiting for us at Cheron."

**End of Season Six **


End file.
